Seven Minutes In Heaven
by violent darlings
Summary: Modern day. The trials and tribulations of Erik as he attempts to navigate the weird and wonderful world of high school. Leroux/Kay based, predominantly Erik/Christine, although at times a little Erik/Everyone. Finally complete.
1. Seven Minutes In Heaven

Hey, all. I'd like to officially state that I have **no **idea where this came from, its like 2am and I just wrote this in an hour and I'm really tired now and I have uni in like seven hours. My attempt at a modern day Erik, I guess. Rated for gratuitous handjobs and teenage!Erik being a perv.

**Disclaimer:** Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux, Phantom to Susan Kay. I'm not referencing ALW, my Christine is blonde, and anyway, you don't deserve it after the shambles of LND, Andrew. Go sit in the naughty corner.

* * *

_I'm gonna have a house party in my house_

_I'm gonna pour booze down my mouth_

_I might stay up til the AM_

_Yeah, I think tonight I'm gonna stay in_

_House Party, 3OH!3_

_**Seven Minutes In Heaven**_

He was seventeen and he had never kissed a girl.

But mostly he tried not to think about this.

Mary Hollbrook's sweet sixteen had been the single most discussed topic at school for the last three weeks. Her parents were going to be out of town the weekend before her actual sixteenth birthday and so Mary, with the logical reasoning skills so common to her age group, had deduced it would be a brilliant idea to invite the entire school to her parents' three story mansion.

Erik would have laughed at it openly, if he didn't think he might get pummeled for it.

Whatever the case, Mary had invited everyone, and Nadir Khan, Erik's best friend, had said, "Dude, we are so going." Nadir had the advantage over Erik of being devastatingly handsome, often with two or three girls on the go at once, but of being infuriatingly kind hearted and patient with his grouchy, hideous friend. Thus, it was impossible for Erik to hate him, as he hated individuals like Raoul de Chagny or Andrew and Fred, the football "heroes" who didn't mind stuffing him into a locker, even at his age. They were willing to try, at least.

So when Nadir had mentioned going to Mary's party, Erik had merely sighed. "Whatever, man," he had replied, immersing himself in his battered copy of Les Miserables once more. "Have fun."

"Nope, E, you're comin' too," Nadir grinned. "Where would I be without my wingman?"

"You don't need my help to pull chicks, Khan. Only to keep your ego in check."

Nadir grinned, unashamed. "No shit, Sherlock. Anyway, Christine's going." The last was said in a sing song fashion not unknown to Erik, as Nadir adopted the same taunting voice when mentioning Christine Daae, Erik's not so secret crush. Christine was blonde and beautiful and sexy, with legs for days and the clearest, purest soprano in the choir. And in Nadir's words, "Fully double Ds, dude."

Erik privately thought she was the hottest girl on the planet, including Megan Fox, and had terrible love poetry to her in the back of his journal. That said, as his age, he would have been happy kissing any girl, Christine or not Christine, even Anna Black with the braces or Meg Giry, who was rumored to have slept with half the football team. He wasn't so picky. Christine was exquisite and perfect and every other adjective he could think of, and was not interested in making out with the 'masked freak'. In fact, he wasn't even sure she knew he was alive.

It was only on the promise of a night spent watching (cough: spying, Nadir had said) on Christine and copious amounts of alcohol that Erik had consented to going. The student body of his high school had an overall only slightly negative feeling towards Erik; he had been picked on less of late since he grew to 6'2 and discovered exactly how buff he could get at the gym. Most of his peers thought it was an odd personal statement of individualism or whatever but through some miracle, the true nature of his hideousness had not been revealed over his high school life. Only Nadir knew what he looked like and was possessed of a violent temper only when someone threatened his friend, making Erik very thankful of Nadir's ten years of judo classes. So Erik acquiesced to going, only to placate Nadir and thoroughly intending to sneak off after half an hour with some booze and get drunk - alone - at the park.

It was a standard party. Erik had been to a few of the things over the years of being Nadir's 'wingman', accompanying his much more popular friend to all manner of celebrations. There was kegs and jelly shots and any number of teenagers engaging in amorous behaviour in all manner of non-traditional locales. Erik was able to appreciate the beautiful architecture of the home and its fine furnishings, wincing as someone spilled red wine (from Mary's parents' wine cellar) on the cream carpet and tomato sauce on the walls. It was all in all an ordinary, wild, destructive party, so when someone suggested Seven Minutes in Heaven, Erik, in curiosity, followed the gaggle of teens into Mary's parents' lounge room, with the adjacent coat closet. Meg handed round a hat into which every boy dropped an object, something identifiable as theirs. As Nadir enthusiastically dropped his into the hat, Erik sighed and placed his watch inside, thinking that any girl who picked it out would refuse on principle anyway.

"Chris, you're up!" chirped Meg to her friend, who grimaced.

"Why do I have to go first?" she asked, standing with a stumble and reaching into the hat.

"'Cause you're the drunkest," Meg replied, and Christine flipped her off with her free hand, yanking out a very familiar watch from the hat.

Erik's heart sank. He loved that watch, it had been his father's, but there was no way he was claiming it now. He could not stand the thought of Christine Daae refusing to go into the closet with him. He would just let the watch go unclaimed -

"Hey, Erik, isn't that yours?" Nadir piped up, causing all eyes to look at him. Erik nearly groaned, wanting to punch his friend but unable to.

"Yeah," he said, affecting an air of detachment. "That's mine."

The room was silent for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Holy shit, Chris," someone chortled. "You got the freak." Erik rather wished he could sink into the ground but instead smiled weakly, as though it were all a huge joke rather than utterly humiliating.

But Christine was reaching behind her and grabbing her bottle, beckoning him with one hand. The sight of her both took his breath away and confused him beyond all understanding. "Come on, then," she said, turning and heading towards the closet. "What?" someone asked. Christine tossed her head. "I got his watch," she replied. "Me and Erik gotta have our seven minutes."

And as he followed her into the darkness, ignoring Nadir's whisper of: "Get to second, dude," all he could think of was: _I didn't know she even knew my name._

The door slammed behind them with a thud. The closet was ridiculously tiny and he found himself standing nearly on top of her, the top of her head only reaching his collarbone. He craned his head down to meet her eyes, but she was busy reaching for her iPhone and using an app to turn it into a flashlight. He was not bothered. He could in fact see her just as well in the dark, but her sapphire eyes darted up to his face and his heart rate doubled.

"So, what do we - ?" Christine held up a hand, answering the question he had not dared to ask.

"Like, as if," she said, crossing her arms and sinking to the floor, resting her back against the door. "No freaking way," she emphasized, lifting the bottle to her lips again.

"Oh," he replied, trying not to notice how her head was rather close to his - uh, never mind, he thought, cutting himself off. As if, after all. He dropped to the floor beside her, ignoring the way she shrunk away a little. "So, we just sit here."

"We just sit here," she echoed, blue eyes flicking to him and then away, and then back again to rest upon his face. He knew it was coming. "Seriously, dude, what's with the mask?" she asked, brushing away her hair from where it had fallen across her eyes. His fingers itched to brush it back for her.

"I'm ugly." She shrugged.

"So is Brian McCourt, but he doesn't wear a paper bag on his head." Erik nearly smiled, picturing Brian's uneven teeth, acne-beset skin, and coke bottle glasses. What he wouldn't give to look like that.

"I'm uglier."

"O... kay." She took a heavy swing from the bottle in her hand and then, after a long look that gauged him in a way that left his skin tingling, she offered it to him. The liquor within was fiery and harsh and seared away the awkwardness lingering in him. He was no longer nervous. Now he was just painfully aware that he was sitting in a closet with Christine Daae, and that her skirt had ridden up to her thighs, and that it was enough to tighten his jeans.

They sat in silence for what felt a lot longer than seven minutes, but what he knew was probably only about two. The silence was broken only by the passing of the bottle back and forward between them. He feasted his eyes on her, having never been this close to her before. Her golden hair which reached just below her shoulders, her ivory skin that he knew she kept pristine in defiance of the tanning obsession that infected the school, and her purple tank top with the black bra strap just peeking out. His eyes slipped to her breasts, and stayed there. He was only a guy, after all, he reasoned, and she wasn't likely to notice -

"You like my tits?" Erik nearly cringed. She wasn't nearly as unperceptive as he'd thought.

"I, uh... yeah," he mumbled, speaking to the floor. How humiliating. Christine was silent for a moment - disgusted, he mused, by his lecherous ogling of her beautiful body.

"You wanna touch them?"

And in that moment, right then, Erik was sure he was dead and gone to heaven. There was not, repeat _NOT_, a hot chick in front of him offering to let him put his skeletal hands over her soft, full breasts. There was so not but his voice was going against his will and he said, "Yeah, I would."

He was sure she was drunk. It was definitely taking advantage of her in her vulnerable state, but at that moment, he kinda really didn't give a shit. He could only watch, dumbfounded, as Christine shrugged her tank top over her head and flicked the catch on her bra, and released, it fell to her lap as her breasts sprang free. It was a thousand times better than any of the pictures he had ever seen and his hands itched to touch her silky flesh.

"Well, go on," Christine said, now definitely slurring her words. "They're not there just to be looked at." And when he didn't move, she huffed in exasperation and, grabbing his hands, planted them square on her bare breasts.

Erik nearly fainted. He found himself quite suddenly holding her tits in his hands and holy _shit _she was so soft, and warm, and he experimentally squeezed one breast, curving his fingers up to stroke the nipple which - oh dear God - went hard underneath his gentle caress. Emboldened, he did the same to the other, until Christine's breathing was just a little irregular and he was holding her so double D breasts in his hands, fingers just lightly stroking her skin.

He was so hard it hurt. He could hear his heart hammering in his ears and was sure she could as she tilted the bottle far back and downed the last of its contents, her gaze falling to rest in his lap. He followed it to the very obvious bulge in his jeans. "Shit, Christine, sorry - "

"You want some help with that?" she asked, her words tripping and sliding into one another. Ah. Chris Daae was a horny drunk. Well, he could live with that. She didn't wait for a reply and was already pawing at his fly, undoing the zip and slipping her slim hand into his jeans. He had seen Christine's hand hold pens and Coke bottles and her mobile, seen her hand fit around her car keys and her school bag and even once around Raoul de Chagny's fingers. But he cannot see Christine's hand wrap around his dick and squeeze, because his eyes are shut and he has just found nirvana.

This was so much better than he had ever dreamed it could be. Her palm was silk and heat, so different in sensation to his own, and he moaned, a loud, longing noise of lust that he was sure everyone outside must have heard. But he didn't care, oh no he did not give a _shit _about everyone else because Christine Daae was touching his cock and stroking and even if her hand was a little clumsy with the effects of the booze he _so _did not care.

Except he really was about to come, so quickly he would have been embarrassed if he was still capable of logical thought. He bucked up against her hand and felt the mask come loose, clatter to the floor. And even though her hand did not stop its movements he heard her quiet gasp but he could move, could not reach for the mask because oh God oh God he was coming he was -

When he could think again Christine was wiping her hand off on a tissue and handing him one. He blinked at her as she extended his mask. "You were wrong," she said casually, as though she had just done nothing more than shake his hand.

"Wrong?" he asked, breathing irregular, as he replaced his mask.

"You're not uglier than Brian McCourt," she said as her eyes watched his face become shrouded. "I don't think you're that ugly at all."

And before he had time to register this stunning revelation, the door was yanked open. Christine tipped backwards as her support was yanked out from behind her, her head hitting the floor with a small thud. She smiled dreamily up. "Hello, Raoul," she said slightly coyly, giggling as Erik stood up and Raoul helped her to her feet. There was a cluster of teens behind her including Nadir as Erik stepped out, blinking into the light.

"Hey Chris!"

"How was it?"

"Did he grope you?"

"OMG, was it disgusting?"

Christine shrugged. "He was nice," she said vaguely, and wandered away with Meg, turning back only to give Erik a sunny smile over her shoulder. He merely blinked again, dazzled by her. The crowd dissipated. No one thought to ask Erik, except Nadir.

"So, did you get to second base?" Nadir wanted to know. Erik grinned and his friend did a double take; the sight of Erik smiling was disturbing and wrong. "What did you do, have an orgasm in there or something?" Erik looped an arm around his friend's shoulder and went off in search of more alcohol.

He is still seventeen and he has still never kissed a girl.

But Christine Daae's number is scrawled on his forearm in cherry lipgloss, and maybe that will change.


	2. Coming In First

Hmm, didn't think I was going to continue this... but its 3am in the morning, so maybe this is one of those stories that can only be written in the wee hours. Warnings for strong language and horny teenage boys.

**Disclaimer**: Phantom belongs to the usual suspects, not yours truly. Because let's face it, in canon Erik never gets any.

_My first kiss went a little like this_

_I said no more teachers and no more books_

_I gotta kiss under the bleachers, hoping that nobody looks_

_Lips like liquorice, tongue like candy_

_Excuse me miss, but can I get you out your panties?_

_My First Kiss, 3OH!3_

_**Coming In First**_

Erik's head whipped forward as a empty water bottle slammed squarely into the back of his head. It bounced away into the thoroughfare of students moving between classes and was instantly kicked away. Erik ignored the sniggers as he slammed his locker shut, Nadir's sympathetic brown eyes coming into view in the door's absence.

"Ouch," he commented, throwing a dirty look at Andrew and Fred as they walked past, smirking. Nadir pulled a face back at them as Erik rubbed the back of his head. "Ready for this?" he asked as they shouldered their way into the throng.

"Not really," Erik admitted. It had been weeks since he had had the best experience of his life with Christine Daae in Mary Hollbrook's parents' downstairs coat closet. he had seen Christine numerous times. but over the weekend he had made the mistake of informing Nadir of what had occurred while they were both under the influence of a significant amount of alcohol, and probably a little stoned to boot. Nadir had been thrilled to hear of it. And a little disgusted.

"She, uh..." Erik had said, gesturing to the general area. Nadir squinted at him.

"Huh?" Erik was crimson under the mask, the flush staining down his throat. Nadir noticed it and finally got the message.

"Chris Daae - head cheerleader, legs up to her ears, hottest girl in the school - gave you a handjob!" Nadir had been speechless for several moments. "Damn, Erik, you're fucking incredible!" Erik had enjoyed the small moment of recognition for his sexual prowess before Nadir's face had abruptly turned green.

"Dude?" Erik asked as Nadir stumbled past him to the toilet, throwing up whatever had been in his stomach with the alcohol.

"Fuck, dude," he'd rasped. "Don't ever say anything like that again."

And that was that.

Nadir, while thrilled Erik had _finally_ gotten some , had spent about half an hour after that worshipping the porcelain god. Erik didn't think Nadir was disgusted at the thought of Erik having sex, or sexual experiences, or whatever - he'd just been pretty drunk. And stoned. And the McDonald's probably hadn't helped. That was good. He'd hate for his best friend to be disgusted at the thought of him hooking up, just like the rest of them.

Whatever the case, Nadir had been alluding to it ever since. It made trying to be unnoticed in class difficult when Nadir kept throwing him dirty notes, as though they were now part of some secret men's club. He dreaded to think if Nadir ever thought of such a concept; the amount of alcohol to be imbibed at such a function would probably box Erik's liver for good.

And Nadir was no help when it came to the social niceties of dealing with Christine's phone number. Erik had immediately saved it to his phone, wary of the lip gloss rubbing off onto his clothes and erasing the precious digits forever. For weeks he had contemplated texting her, dreaming about it in class when he should have been studying mitosis and Shakespeare. But what to send? Nadir's only suggestions had been deeply X-rated in nature, ranging from comments on Christine's breasts to what she'd like to do with them (both!) at Mary's next party. Although given the rumours of her parents' reaction to the mayhem wreaked on the house that night, Mary would be lucky to be let out of the house for recreational purposes by the time she was forty.

Nadir was pure filth, really, he reflected. And utterly unsupportive. Erik was never letting him copy their calculus homework ever again. He made his way to Biology in a haze, slipping through the throng in the wake of Nadir's broad-shouldered form, the same way they always did. Nadir nudged him as they walked into the lab. "Partners?"

Erik nodded. "Yeah."

Meanwhile, no matter what Erik and Christine had got up to in that downstairs closet that was coming to figure prominently in his dreams, he had still never had kissed a girl. Ever. And it seemed he was doing this whole sexual experiences thing out of order and quite frankly, it was disquieting. He needed to restore a bit of balance to the universe.

He needed to make out with Chris Daae.

And he had no idea how to go about it, short of begging her and hoping she'd take pity. He reflected that he thought about this a lot, going around and around in circles, and he never got anywhere with it. It was just torture.

His reverie on this (repetitive) subject ended when Nadir passed him a note.

_bet u wanna study biology with Chris, huh?_

_Fuck off Khan, some of us are trying to study. and your jokes are getting worse._

_nah man, u just need to relax. when r u gonna text her anyway? u've had her number 4 weeks._

_I'm... getting to it._

_sure u are._

Their scribbled chat was cut off when Mr. Heysen threw them a nasty look. Erik hastily tore the note up into little pieces. The last thing he needed was being forced to read _that_ out to the entire class. He wouldn't put it past Heysen, either; the man was a sadist. Who else gave out homework for single lessons?

But Nadir's accusation nagged at him all the way through the rest of Biology, English and into lunch. Was he a coward for not texting Christine? Although he knew Nadir would never call him such a thing, he felt as though he was. Nadir was a sex god, in Erik's _very_ objective opinion, and rarely a weekend went past that Nadir didn't hook up with _somebody_. Nadir texted so many girls a day the mobile phone company frequently threatened to cut him off, considering his aversion to paying his phone bills. Nadir wasn't afraid of any girl.

Then again, Erik was fairly sure Nadir had never been in love with a girl, either. They were just a bit of fun to him. And Erik was in love with Christine, he was sure of it. Odd, slightly obsessive love, but still love. He couldn't help it. He wished he could.

And he wasn't a coward. He watched her across the cafeteria at the 'popular' table, chatting with Meg and Raoul and all the other pretty people, her phone casually on the table in front of her. He knew it played some silly pop song when she got a message.

He really was a bit obsessed.

But he wasn't a coward.

So in the end, he sent a single word.

_Hi._

He watched her pick up her phone, read the message with a furrowed brow, reply with her quick fingers tapping a staccato rhythm against the touch phone.

_hi. who is this?_

_It's Erik._

_Eric... from the pool?_

_No, Erik from your chemistry class._

_... how'd u get my number?_

_You gave it to me. At Mary's two weekends ago._

_omg. the guy with the mask._

_Yes, that would be me._

She looked up, and her bright eyes connected with his across the cafeteria. A shadow passed across them, and something unsettled moved in his chest, like butterflies.

Or maybe moths.

_meet me in the library. 10 minutes._

True to form, he was there waiting for her eight minutes later, checking his watch every few seconds as though that would speed up time.

She dashed through the door eleven minutes after her text, nine minutes before the end of lunch. The library was - like usual - deserted save for two or three die-hard study addicts tucked in a corner, as far from the sun as they could get. They didn't even look up when she burst through the doors and dragged him off into one of the group study rooms, shutting the door securely behind her.

Erik was painfully aware he was alone with Christine Daae, but as she turned to him, her eyes hard, his stomach sank down into his stomach and lingered somewhere around his knees. This was no social visit, no secret tryst. She was here to set him straight.

"Listen," she said, talking so quickly her words blurred together. "I was drunk - really, really drunk - at Mary's party, I can hardly remember anything that happened." But her inability to meet his gaze told him a different story.

"But - you gave me your number - " he began, hoping against hope.

"Erik," she said, and he shivered. "We can't be friends. In case you hadn't, like, noticed, Raoul and I are this close to going steady." Her index finger stopped a hair's breadth from her thumb. "I can't have you mess that up."

His ears were buzzing and his extremities seemed to have gone numb. "Oh."

He was doing his best to put a brave face on (as it were) but judging by the look on her face, even the single syllable had conveyed his despair.

"Don't... do that," she sighed, turning away, running her hands through her hair.

"What?" he asked, genuinely baffled. Christ, girls were confusing.

"That... look in your eyes. It's like I've just kicked your puppy or something."

"I don't have a puppy," he said inanely, and then could have kicked _himself_ at the "not the point, Sherlock" look on her face. "Sorry."

She threw up her hands. "Honestly, Erik, I don't get you," she snapped in frustration. "Just, leave me alone, OK?" Mute and stricken, he nodded, looking at his shoes and hoping for a freak occurrence of the ground opening and swallowing him alive. "Well, unless there's something else I can do for you," she said sarcastically, turning towards the door, her hand on the handle.

"Wait," he blurted out, utterly against his will, some alien force taken hold of his tongue. Christine stopped, her shoulders lifting in an unconscious sigh. "There is... something..."

"What?" she snapped, turning on her heel. He couldn't look her in the eye; this was the most God forsaken embarrassing thing he'd ever done.

"No one's ever... kissed me, before." And there it was, out in the open. He lifted his eyes to hers, expecting to see derision, scorn, and disgust. After all, she had just brutally knocked back his hopes of ever being even friends with her. But he had forgotten that Chris, for all her bravado, was not a cruel girl at heart. Her eyes were soft with sympathy, and warm with understanding.

He did not hate her for rejecting him. High school was a cutthroat world, and she was just doing all she could to survive. Same as him.

And when she stepped closer to him, twitching the lock on the door as she released it, his heartbeat picked up and he could feel his palms slick against his fisted fingers.

Tentatively, as though waiting for him to react adversely, she raised the mask two or three inches, high enough for him to feel the cool air on his chin and cheeks. She scraped a slender finger along the burgeoning stubble along his jaw. "At least you don't have to shave," she quipped, and while he was breathlessly chuckling at the smile tugging at her lips, she kissed him.

It was warm and wet and quick; they were the impressions that would stay with him. He had no idea what to do with his hands and so they floated in midair, about six inches away from her shoulders. He felt the press of her tongue against his lips and instinctively opened his mouth, and then that seemed to be the end of it. She drew away quickly, breath a little uneven, and tugged down the mask.

"Are you happy now?" she asked, not waiting for a reply as she strode away. Erik stood, thunderstruck, with the fingers of one hand pressed against his lips like a clichéd heroine in a stupid romance novel. He watched her retreating form, not entirely sure how to feel.

Honestly, after the handjob, the kissing all seemed a bit unimpressive.

And how was he supposed to tell Nadir about this?

But, he thought as he exited the library, he'd been kissed. Snogged. Made out with. Played tonsil hockey. Swapped saliva.

And any other number of slightly nauseating colloquialisms for kissing.

He caught sight of his own masked face in a window, and couldn't help but grin beneath his mask as the bell rang and he made his way through the masses of students to his locker.

He'd been kissed.

_Wicked. _


	3. Batting For The Other Team

Its 3am. this is definitely one of those stories you can only write when you're knackered. Deviates from our previous E/C storyline, because Erik's just too hot to not share around.

**Disclaimer**: I can't be arsed with this. If Phantom was mine I wouldn't be typing because Erik would currently be tying me to my bed and having his way with me.

* * *

_I ain't gonna take no shit from no one_

_I ain't gonna take no lip from no one_

_You ain't gonna try to get me your hold on_

_I can do anything, anything, anything I want_

_I Can Do Anything, 3OH!3_

_**Batting for the Other Team**_

Erik jogged out of last period English with a beatific expression on his masked face. The expression could not be seen, but the glint in his eyes and bounce in his step could. Nadir, passing him, made a crude sexual innuendo about what Miss Pierce could have been doing to make him so gleeful, but Erik ignored him, flipping him off in lieu of a return comment. No one could rain on his parade.

There was something just so... _delicious_ about getting full marks for something he'd knocked together the night before.

He was headed to the library to tackle his arch nemesis. Erik usually didn't stay behind after school to study, but exams were in a few weeks and he was desperate. English he could master, but God himself could not teach Erik chemistry, and so Erik found a seat and hit the books, wishing whoever had discovered chemistry shit had left the bloody hell well enough alone.

Two hours later he left the library, feeling his brain throb against the inside of his skull but with a slightly greater understanding of equilibriums. Arrows and symbols etched inside his head, he failed to notice the tall figure loitering around the corner as he smacked straight into him, papers scattering everywhere, his chem textbook hitting the floor with a crack.

"Jesus! What the - "

The figure looming over him was none other than Raoul de Chagny, Christine's 'boyfriend', and one of Erik's least favourite people. But, to be fair, de Chagny stuck out a hand and hauled Erik to his feet, helping him gather his papers.

"Working late, Erik?" asked the other boy genially as Erik moved the short distance to his locker, silently wishing the boy would just shut up.

"Yeah, man. Chemistry," he admitted grudgingly. De Changy nodded.

"That equilibrium shit sucks," he said. "Bloody Le Chandelier." Erik sighed. De Chagny was just a _little_ bit blonde. He grappled with the bag inside the locker, trying to think of something to say to make the other boy piss off. Coming up short - he decided to let the boy's Marc Jacobs sweater pass unnoticed because, really, _so_ pretentious - he said, "So, you and Chris, hey?"

Thinking about de Chagny and Christine made Erik feel sick, but he managed to grit the words out. It wasn't de Chagny's fault he was dating Erik's dream girl.

"What about me and Chris?" de Chagny asked, looking stupefied. Erik rescinded his earlier opinion. De Chagny was _very_ blonde.

"Aren't you together?" Erik asked, the words sticking in his throat. He coughed to clear it, feeling the words' taste of rot and cauliflower.

De Chagny sighed, suddenly looking much older than his eighteen years. "Christine is a sweet girl, but she's not really my type..." he said, trailing off with a meaningful gesture. Erik was completely stumped.

"But she said... you two were going out." De Chagny made a noise of pure frustration, slamming his head back against the lockers as though to drive some disquieting image from his head.

"I have to!" he complained. Erik privately thought there were worse things to have to do on the planet. "It's not my choice, but I have to."

Erik didn't see how this was true, and said as much. "So just tell her you don't want to go out with her. Sure, it'll hurt her feelings, but she'll get over it." And move straight onto me, he thought with a tinge of malice.

"She's not the one I'm trying to convince," de Chagny replied, and Erik crossed his arms, leaning against the lockers as he tried to puzzle it out.

"Spit it out, de Chagny," he snapped. Watching Raoul hang his head and kick sadly at the floor with one designer sneaker, Erik felt a little sorry for his harshness. "Sorry, Raoul. But I don't get what you're saying."

The older boy's lips pulled down into an expression Erik thought was a grimace, but he soon realised it was intended as a smile, albeit a grim one. "No one knows," Raoul said, a bitter laugh shaking his slim shoulders. "No one can know."

Erik was on the verge of asking why Raoul was telling him then when the other boy lifted his head to look at Erik, feminine lashes blinking around simply _massive_ blue eyes. "No one but you, Erik," said Raoul breathily, one hand going to his chest. "And you can't tell _anyone_."

Now Erik was well aware of his flaws. He was arrogant, self-absorbed; he would go so far as to say occasionally cruel. He sucked at chemistry and sucked harder at PE. But by a mile, he would consider his greatest flaw to be curiosity, the need to know everything and anything about the universe and all its contents.

Well, except chemistry.

So that was how he found himself nodding, replying, "Of course, Raoul, whatever you say," and pricking up his ears for what was probably a pathetic blip on his social radar, but potentially could be a piece of amusing/disturbing gossip to relate to Nadir later.

"WannagotothemoviesonFriday?" said Raoul in a blur, and Erik frowned behind his mask. Raoul usually articulated his words perfectly, unfaltering. The boy was a born public speaker, unlike Erik, who hated crowds and hated speeches, and considered the two together to be hell on earth.

"Raoul, I didn't get a word of that," he snapped, patience thinning. Raoul took a deep breath as though asking for strength through oxygen.

"Erik. Would you like to go to the movies with me on Friday?" he enunciated clearly.

Erik laughed.

"Like a date?" he jested, expecting to see Raoul's face split into a grin, hear the other boy's curse or teasing back at him. But Raoul just kicked the ground and stayed silent, and Erik's laughter faded.

"Raoul, you're not..."

"I'm gay," the other boy said flatly, finally meeting Erik's eyes. "I'm gay and I have a crush on you."

_Hol. Lee. Fuck._

"What?" Erik managed, voice unsteady. "Me? Why me?"

"You're so mysterious," the other boy entreated, Raoul's big eyes imploring. "And you have such amazing eyes, and you're so smart. I've... I've seen the way you look at Christine," he admitted. "When you think no one is looking. Is it so wrong I want you to look at me that way too?"

Erik was floored.

"Uh, no, Raoul," he found himself stammering, shocked to the core. "It's, uh, perfectly natural..." De Chagny was gay. How had he not noticed this up until now? The hair, the looks, the designer jeans that clung perfectly to his ass... he was as camp as a row of tents, to use the modern vernacular, and it had taken him all this time to see it.

Although, the tonsil hockey he and Christine often engaged in was rather misleading, Erik supposed. "So... you and Chris...?"

Raoul ran an exasperated hand through his hair. "My father would kill me," the boy said, voice cracking with anger. "He'd kick me out if he knew, disown me, _everything_. I have to pretend to be perfect, the perfect _straight_ son."

"Ah," Erik found himself replying, as the world tilted on its axis.

He was _feeling sorry_ for Raoul de _fucking_ Chagny.

Erik was hideous. He knew this. But at least he was free to be whatever sexuality he chose. All of Raoul's good looks counted for nothing if he couldn't be with the people he really wanted to be with. Erik had to hide his face, but Raoul had to hide everything.

"Christ, that sucks, man. I'm sorry," he replied eloquently when the powers of speech were restored to him. In response Raoul gave him a slightly watery grin. "Thanks, man," he said, and Erik found himself patting Raoul on the shoulder.

"So you don't like chicks at all?" Erik asked, because, really, he had to know. Raoul shook his head.

"When I'm with Christine I close my eyes and imagine Chris Colfer," he confessed in a low voice, before stretching his shoulders and cracking a wide grin. "Man, it feels so good to talk about this!"

Erik disagreed. He felt a little odd. He needed to clarify something.

"Man, you know I'm straight," he said, and Raoul looked unsurprised.

"Yeah, I figured," he said sadly. "I wanted to check though."

And _awww_, Erik's bleak heart just melted. Poor guy.

"I mean, I dunno," he burst out, and Raoul looked a little hopeful. "I've never made out with a dude, I might like it."

Christ, Nadir would piss himself to see this, Erik thought to himself as Raoul's entire visage lit up with joy.

"I mean, it couldn't hurt to try..." Raoul trailed off, and Erik's heart hurt for him. The thought of anyone crushing on him in silence the way he had been for Christine tore at him. Him! Ugly, hideous Erik! And Raoul really wasn't as unbearable as Erik had supposed; he was rather naive and sweet, really, if a little cloying.

And he wasn't repulsive, to look at. Erik was repulsive. Compared to Erik Raoul looked like a young Adonis. Not having a proper face changed one's perception of others, Erik decided, watching the other boy through narrowed eyes. And Raoul did look so damnably hopeful, as if making out with Erik would be the most epic thing to ever happen to him.

Erik had never even considered being anything other than utterly heterosexual. This was more of an assumption rather than a true conviction, as (if he was honest with himself) he found most of the human race attractive. Lacking an ordinary face he was forced to conclude beauty in even the most conventionally unattractive of faces. Snaggle teeth, hooked noses, acne; compared to his absent nose and fragile, nearly translucent skin on his face, they were gorgeous.

"No, Raoul," Erik said, tasting the boy's name on his tongue and revelling in his shiver, "I don't think it would hurt to try."

He thought Raoul would jump him then, but Erik held up a hand to stop him. "Raoul," he warned. "I don't... wear this mask for the sake of wearing it," he began, but Raoul was already shaking his head.

"Dude, I know what you look like," he informed Erik matter-of-factly, sending the other boy into a tailspin of confusion.

"What? But how - ?"

"When Fred and Andrew pulled your mask off in second grade," Raoul replied. Erik cringed. The memory was horrific.

"Well, its hasn't gotten any better," he snapped when he found himself capable of speech again. "If anything, it's worse."

Raoul shrugged. "So you won't be winning any beauty contests any time soon. There's more to you than that," he said, and Erik, mildly filled with wonder, really wanted to kiss him.

And so he did.

Dragging the other boy into a handy nearby janitorial closet, Erik yanked the door shut and had his mask off in about ten seconds. The darkness was impenetrable and Erik fumbled for Raoul's hands in the darkness, skating his own up the boy's arms and around his shoulders. They were locked body to body, chest to chest. Erik could feel Raoul's heart going a mile a minute against his own.

It was weird.

But Raoul's lips, although not as soft as Christine's, were on his, and Erik fully saw the flashes of light behind his eyelids everyone talked about when kissing. Christine's kiss had been good but Raoul, God bless him, knew what boys wanted cause he was one and Erik's train of thought derailed rather spectacularly when the other boy shoved his tongue in his mouth.

They only broke apart when the need to breathe reared its head.

"Wow," Raoul breathed, eyes still closed, and Erik deftly pulled down his mask, pulling open the door into the light-filled corridor and towing Raoul behind him. He gripped Raoul's hand firmly, not a manly handshake he might give a stranger or the more familiar but still manly hand clasp he occasionally traded with Nadir as a symbol of their male solidarity with each other.

No. He held Raoul's hand like he would a lover... like he would hold Chris's hand if she'd let him.

"This is it, isn't it?" Raoul asked, breaking him from his reverie. Erik looked at him.

"Yeah," he replied, and Raoul grinned.

"Thanks, man," he said, and Erik had the feeling it was all ending too fast, from that moments ago tryst in a fucking _closet_ to Raoul prancing off down the corridor, a smile the size of Brazil on his lightly glossed lips.

_Well, we're out of the closet now._

So there was his second kiss.

With a dude.

Erik thought about it for a second, leaning against his locker and steepling his fingers as he contemplated all the mysteries of the world.

He didn't think he would do it again.

Raoul was... cute, he guessed, cute enough, but Erik's heart belonged quite firmly to Christine Daae.

... Didn't it?

* * *

If anyone is offended by the content or terminology in this story, please, for Christ's sake, understand this is intended as humour and is written from the point of view of a teenager, who, if we're being honest, aren't always politically correct. I understand the issues LGBT people face, I am one.

If you're just a homophobe, don't bother messaging me.


	4. Counting All The Bases

3am again. Christ, this is becoming a bit of a recurring theme. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I was thrilled with the great reaction to bi!Erik. A serve of teenage confusion, underage drinking, and swearing coming right up. Bring on the bromance!

Disclaimer: Glorious Nadir belongs to the fabulous Susan Kay. Erik is a whore and everyone owns a bit of him and I can't be bothered listing them. If you're here shouldn't you know?

* * *

_So tell me baby pretty baby that this house is not a graveyard_

_Tell me how to stay strong and carry you home_

_Over corpses of her long-lost fathers and her unborn daughters_

_Cause goddamnit I can't do it alone_

_I Can't Do It Alone, 3OH!3_

**Covering All The Bases**

Erik had liked Christine Daae almost as long as he'd been at high school.

It had been eighth grade, when he'd been weedy and short and convinced high school was the worst thing to happen to him. His parents had been gentle but adamant he had to progress forwards to high school, and a future of patriotic wedgies and being thrown into dumpsters and shut in lockers swam before him like an ocean of terror. He was utterly alone and utterly terrified, and when a quartet of angry ugly upperclassmen came towards him with their fists clenched, he knew his paranoia about high school had been justified.

The first day they threw him into a dumpster.

The second day they gave him a patriotic wedgie.

The third day they shut him in a locker.

He had been let out after nearly half the school day had elapsed by a grim, pale maths teacher who looked like he hadn't seen the light of day since 1978. Trying to find his English classroom, he was in the corridor attempting to remain unnoticed by a group of jocks when the sound from another classroom hit him. An angelic, pure soprano, as far as he could tell. He was only a teenager, after all. But it was without a doubt the prettiest voice he had ever heard, and the sound of it was enough to take his breath away.

He peered into the classroom, only to see an angel. Shoulders back, head held high, she sang like a professional and it filled him with a warm, almost scorching glow in his chest. His mother had been a singer. Once.

When she stopped he expected her to curtsey, as old fashioned as it was, or perhaps wave regally to her stunned audience of the rest of the class. But, she had instead shoved her gum back into her mouth and said, "Yeah, never doing that again," and sat down.

It turned out Chris Daae's dad was a singing tutor and a vocal coach. Little Chris had been having lessons ever since she could talk and as a result the girl loathed singing. Loathed it. She'd put her foot down about the lessons the summer prior, displaying a streak of teenage stubborness that left her father at his wits end, baffled by this strange young woman who had replaced his angelic-voiced child. Christine refused on principle to join choirs and vocal groups, giving everyone who asked a cold stare that just screamed, "Bitch, please."

And Erik never heard Christine Daae sing ever again. But her voice remained crystal clear in his memory, and when the time came for him to start having feelings for girls, her beautiful face and exquisite voice was the first in his mind, surpassing Emma Thwaites' utterly-out-of-proportion-to-the-rest-of-her breasts or Meg Giry's rumoured promiscuity.

Well, he did spare a thought for Meg, but she had made her disdain for him very clear. No, Christine Daae was the woman for him.

He would love her forever. Or at least until the end of high school.

As it turned out, there was no more bullying either. On the fourth day he met Nadir, tall and with muscles so impressive they sometimes seemed to have their own field of gravity, and then no one was game enough to touch him. Nadir had been locked in a stall in the boy's toilets freaking out over a spider blocking his path. It turned out spiders were Nadir's kryptonite and once the spider was slain they fell to talking. Nadir liked the other boy's quick wit and sarcastic commentary on the other students so much he decided to keep Erik around that day, and then for the week, and so on. It had been years since they'd met and he had still not tired of Erik and his mask and his mystery and his wicked temper.

So Christine and Nadir were the constants in his life. His love for Christine and his friendship with Nadir, and never the twain should meet. Or whatever. The point was, the lines had blurred. Raoul de Chagny had entered the playing field and turned it all upside down. That one little... _encounter_, and Raoul's confession, had changed everything.

Erik didn't want to be with Raoul... most of the time. He wanted Christine, beautiful Christine with her silky blonde hair and her quick flashing grin and her delicate wrists.

He wasn't sure why he found her wrists so cute. Maybe that was a bit weird.

The thing was, he couldn't look at her now without thinking, _I made out with your boyfriend, I played tonsil hockey with your boyfriend._

Etc.

It was stupid and immature and he knew it. If Nadir knew what was running through his head as he stared as Christine hazily in the cafeteria, he'd laugh himself stupid and then maybe throw up again.

Christ.

He shared everything with Nadir. Nadir had been his confidant and his rock through so much hardship, his first real friend. He had shared everything with Nadir, all the details of his life, including the half a dozen foster homes he'd lived in, where everything from his sarcasm to his grades to his appalling face had been the eventual reason for him to move on.

He was settled in now of course, with a couple and their two daughters, the son and older brother to the girls they'd always wanted. He'd been with them since he was twelve, his mum and dad and little sisters. He hardly remembered the parents who had died in a car crash when he was barely old enough to be out of a carseat. They'd loved him, he knew; he had a thousand pictures of a smiling woman with his eyes and a man with his dark hair snuggling a freakish baby, holding it, playing with it.

Christmas and birthdays and holidays and just days, all strung together in glorious frozen colour, proof through the hard years his parents had loved him, and accepted him.

In every picture he had been mask-less.

He couldn't remember where he'd got his first mask, when someone had snapped and fashioned a garment to protect their eyes from his monstrous features.

Nadir had seen it, when Erik had been scrounging through his bag one day and had tripped, only a few weeks into their friendship. The mask had come off, and Erik had lunged for it, hands over his face, desperate to conceal the horror he was sure would be the end of his friendship with Nadir. But he had seen it anyway.

Nadir had turned a delicate shade of green under his tanned skin, his lips quivering, but had managed a shaky grin and an arm around Erik's shoulders and an invitation to come round for Playstation. Erik had managed not to burst into tears with gratitude and had agreed, and the subject was never touched upon again. Nadir had his back and Erik in return did their calculus homework and if it was a parasitic relationship somewhere it became symbiotic because they genuinely liked one another.

And now everything had changed.

Erik had made out with a dude. And OK, that was so not a statement he could imagine saying to his best friend. But Raoul had been there and so earnest and _cute _and Erik couldn't resist blue eyes, he never could. Christine had blue eyes. And it had been a mind numbingly awesome experience to kiss Raoul, to run his hands along the boy's shoulders and feel the muscles there. But why? Was he genuinely attracted to guys, or just desperate? He didn't know.

But. Oh, but.

The feel of Raoul against him, chest to chest in the darkness, hands fisted in his hair, was one he was having a hard time shaking off. Erik didn't know why. He felt sorry for the boy, sure, but anyone with clothes that nice clearly didn't suffer too much. Erik knew that was unfair, but somehow it didn't really matter when Raoul slung a casual arm around Christine and she leaned into him.

He couldn't work out to be jealous of.

School that week elapsed blissfully quickly and Erik soon found himself slumped on Nadir's bed in friend's attic bedroom, contraband vodka fizzling pleasantly in his veins and colouring the world brighter. They had been on the X-box but when Nadir's parents and four sisters left to go to the movies Nadir had fished out a couple of bottles from under his bed and they had set to work drinking themselves happy.

Except Erik wasn't happy. Casting a glance at Nadir, sprawled in his computer chair staring dreamily at the poster of Megan Fox on his wall, he decided to bite the bullet.

"Nadir?" Erik asked, staring up at the cracks in Nadir's ceiling. There were forty-two. He sat up with a groan.

"Yeah?" replied his best friend hazily.

"Have you ever..." He trailed off. What if Nadir hated him? Thought he was a freak?

"What, dude? You're killing my buzz," Nadir said.

"Ever thought about, you know, guys?"

"What about guys?"

"You know. Making out with guys."

Nadir went very still, only his head moving until his narrowed eyes regarded Erik beadily. "What are you trying to say, Erik?"

Erik decided just to spit it out. The look on Nadir's face was indecipherable and could just be confusion. Or disgust. But come on, Nadir was his friend. His mate. They could work this out, surely?

"I... I think I'm bi, Nadir," he said, watching the other boy for a reaction. "At least bi. I'm... attracted to guys."

This was it. This was the moment Nadir was going to call him a freak and shout at him to get out of his house. Nadir was going to stride over and punch Erik for being even more of a freak than what his face already made him and Erik would be utterly friendless. Nadir's lips pursed, and then turned down, and then opened, and Erik braced himself for the onslaught, the words that would destroy his friendship forever -

"OK," Nadir said, taking a long swig from his bottle.

_OK? OK? OK?_

"WHAT?" Erik exploded. "How is it OK? I made out with Raoul! De Fucking Chagny!"

Nadir shuddered. "Ew," he said expressively. "De Chagny? Are you that desperate?"

Erik saw red.

"Oh, yes, actually, I am that desperate. It's so easy for you. You're Mr Ladies Man 2010. All the girls want you. You're the fucking school Casanova, for Christ's sake! How would you know what it's like to be desperate?"

Silence followed Erik's tirade, before Nadir sat up straight and regarded his friend through eyes only a little fogged with alcohol. "Are you mad because I don't have a problem with you being bi, or because you want me to have a problem with you being bi?" he asked shrewdly.

Sometimes Erik's best friend was really too perceptive for his own good. Erik thought this, and also that perhaps he was the luckiest bastard on the planet.

"You... you don't have a problem with this?"

Nadir shrugged. "Why would I?" he asked sensibly. "My folks are Muslim, man. I know what it feels like to be discriminated against, why would I want to do that to anyone else? Well," he amended, "maybe like paedophiles or something. That shit is fucked up. But dude, you're my boy. Why would I care which way you swung?"

Erik wanted to hug the shit out of his friend but, he thought, in view of his confession that might not have been a wise move. Instead once again he considered his extraordinary luck. _Nadir didn't care._ Nadir didn't think it was a big deal. And the question was, why did Erik think it was? Where did it come from, this ingrained social dogma that one had to be completely straight or be an outcast from society? Erik was reasonably open-minded, certainly he had taken Raoul's homosexuality in his stride, but why couldn't he apply that to himself?

"It's wrong," he said, but the words felt hollow.

"Nah," said Nadir, waving a hand in dismissal. "'S natural. Guy meets girl, they have sex. Girl meets girl, they have sex. Guy meets guy..."

Erik's head was spinning. It was doing a lot of that lately. Life was throwing him curve balls one after the other lately, and it didn't look like it was about to let up. "Does that mean you're...?"

"Nope," Nadir said cheerfully. "Straight as an arrow. But what other guys do with their dicks isn't my business."

And Erik guessed that was that.

The next day when he watched Christine Daae across the cafeteria, he didn't think of Raoul at all even though he was sitting next to her, and Erik could feel the solid presence of his best friend at his side, at his back. Sometimes, Erik figured, you don't have to cover all the bases yourself. Sometimes there's someone there to help you cover them.

And all was well.


	5. Stepping Up To The Plate

I'm not entirely sure how why I'm updating again... usually it takes me a ridiculous amount of time between updates to man up and write something. Well, I'll just roll with it. A bit of Meg for you; as usual, be aware its a fic about teenagers and they're not always rational and PC and etc etc...

Oh, and cheers to PHLover213 for the review. G'day mate. :)

Disclaimer: Not mine. Other people's. Enough said.

* * *

_You're way too young to be broken_

_You're way too young to fall apart_

_You're way too young to play these games_

_But you better start, but you better start_

_I'm not the one, I'm not the one who wants to hurt you_

_I'm Not The One, 3OH!3_

**_Stepping Up To The Plate_**

If there was a God, then he made Christine Daae in the image of the angels, and Meg Giry in the image of the Devil.

Not the traditional kind of demon, though, no cloven hoofs and horns. Erik firmly believed if the Devil truly existed he - or rather she - would be in the form of a beautiful woman. And Meg ticked every box on his list. Her black hair and vivid green eyes were not so much an object of contemplation as her body, a work of art and dedication that could tempt a saint.

His high school's weekly compulsory religion class always made Erik a little reflective, and Meg's position directly opposite him for two hours each week always left him with a hard-on and the mental image of Christine in a halo. Of course, she was hardly perfect. She flipped her hair around way too much and frankly the sight of her and Raoul together made him feel nauseated and she could be a bit of a bitch. But her best friend left her for dead.

Meg had... issues. Everyone knew it. She and Christine were best friends, but the two girls, utterly dissimilar in looks, were poles apart in personality. They shared a certain... Erik hesitated to say _bitchy_ quality, but they were undoubtedly acerbic when irritated. Erik chalked it up to them both being cheerleaders. Those obnoxious uniforms were probably enough to piss anyone off.

There were enough rumours floating around Heysen High about Meg Giry that one didn't need to listen out for them. Erik guessed every school needed a slut and Meg seemed all too happy to fulfil that role. The rumours listed the majority of the football team, the chess captain, the principal's aide, and both Spanish teachers among her paramours. That she spent most weekends high or worse, in the company of the kind of men most parents would lock up their daughters for spending time with. But there was no controlling Meg.

Not like Christine. Christine might have broken his heart, but he was confident she didn't do drugs. It made him a little hypocritical to care about considering he himself had tried ecstasy and smoked pot more than a few times, but Chris was different. Sometimes he thought Chris above the rest of the world, out of the reach of ordinary mortals. And then he remembered her snobbiness and occasional nasty streak and the fact that she could just be plain mean sometimes, and that illusion faded quickly enough.

But she did look like an angel compared to Meg.

Marie Giry worked at the public library and was a friend of Erik's mother. At stern, dark haired woman beginning to grey a little, Erik could see how a daughter like Meg would be enough to drive the woman to her usual iron control.

Erik only imagined the kind of childhood that had raised a girl like Meg, but Marie seemed like a decent enough person. Standing in Marie's immaculate living room, a beer in one hand, he checked his watch. Already eleven pm. He wasn't sure exactly where Marie was; Nadir had said Fred said Mary said Renee said Meg had said her mum was away on business. Erik didn't really know what exactly made a librarian travel for business, but it must have been important for her to be gone all weekend. Whatever the reason, Meg had invited everyone, even the geeks and the nerds and then lowest on the social totem pole, Erik, to her house for a party. Bring on the booze.

He needed some air, mainly because Raoul was in the process of stripping off his shirt and the sight was enough to inspire some very inappropriate feelings in the region of Erik's pants. Nadir, seated beside him, shot Erik an outrageously obvious wink as he too stripped, removing his jacket. Nadir had not stopped teasing Erik about his confession regarding his less than strictly straight sexuality a month ago. Nadir, ever supportive, was comfortable enough with it to mock the shit out of him, much as he'd done with his crush on Christine.

Erik left the game of strip poker and the crushing heat of the house to the sweet, soft night air. The streetlights cast a gentle glow upon the world, the darkness as the edges of the light a welcome reprieve to the bright lights and loud music of Meg's party. But when a couple stumbled out the front door, attached at the lips, he cursed under his breath. Foiled again.

He escaped to the rose garden next door to Meg's house. The scent was a little cloying but it was peaceful. He stared up at the few stars he could see in suburbia and leaned against a hedge. Maybe it was a little gay to be standing in a rose garden staring up at the stars, but hell, he was bi after all. Maybe it just kinda came with the territory or something.

He was interrupted from musing about his sexuality as someone came running down the path, swatting aside tree branches and cursing at a thorny rose flicked them in the face. Erik's displeasure at his sanctuary being disturbed was curbed by his surprise at the intruder; it was Meg Giry, and she spotted him the same moment he realised she was crying.

"Oh!" she said, wiping her tears away "Didn't see ya there, sugar," she drawled, a shaky smile on her lips, her slender body shaking with the effort of her emotions. Erik stepped forward into the light and Meg's face went blank.

"Mask!" she said in surprise. "Didn't know you were here."

"Yes, I came with Nadir Khan," Erik said, but she burst into tears halfway through his sentence. "Giry, what is it?"

He wasn't sure why he called her by her last name. Maybe because she looked so _pathetic_ standing there.

"It's nothing," Meg said.

"You're crying over nothing?" Erik asked, and Meg made an incoherent noise before hurtling towards him. "Meg, what are you - "

Her soft, warm weight crashed into him and they both hit the ground. The air whooshed from him and he struggled into a sitting position, Meg leaned on his shoulder, the tears falling in great droplets down her face. Freaking out, he gingerly patted her on the back.

"I'm really scared," the girl confided, and Erik stared down at her, watching the tear tracks fall lazily down her pretty cheeks. He thought - from the smell of her - she was extremely drunk. "I'm only saying this because everyone thinks you're a freak and wouldn't believe you if you told but I'm really scared."

Without thinking he put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her in to his chest. She was so tiny, it was as though he was holding one of his little sisters. But his sisters, twelve and ten, did not wear shirts as low cut as Meg's and skirts as short, lipstick so bright or eyeliner now being slowly washed away. The thought struck him that Meg might be someone's little sister, and he felt suddenly queasy at the thought of Amelia and Rose being in the same position as Meg one day.

"Why are you scared, Meg?" he asked. The girl sniffed violently, making an effort to talk without crying.

"Last month..." she hiccupped, pressing her hand against her lips in an attempt to still her sobs. "Last month, I was at... one of the jocks' houses, it doesn't matter who it was. We were supposed to be doing our Spanish project but instead he..." She fell back into sobbing, her eyes scrunched up unattractively and her face flushed and contorted with the strain of her emotions. He didn't think she was hot anymore, but somehow, even through her tears, she was still pretty.

But the weight of what she said sank in, and Erik cursed under his breath. He had no idea how to deal with this, but he had to ask. Hell, he was not a subtle person by nature.

"Meg, did he rape you?" Erik asked, not wanting to know the answer, feeling like a bastard when she flinched back away from him. He was utterly out of his depth. This wasn't like when Amelia lost a netball game or Rose's fish died. This was proper, grown up pain, on the face and in the voice of a girl who looked too young to be feeling so much.

"No," she finally said through her tears, hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically, as though out of her control. "But I wish he had."

"What?" Erik asked, reasonably sure he had heard wrong. Surely she hadn't said she wished he had raped her. No one would want that. But Meg was deadly serious.

"I did this," she choked out, her eyes overflowing, mascara smeared down her cheeks. "I let him fuck me. I did this to myself. And now I've missed my period and I'm scared and God, what if I'm - "

Erik clapped his hand over her mouth. "Meg, calm down," he instructed, and to his surprise she shifted, climbing onto his lap and weeping into his shirt collar. His heart skipped a beat at the weight of her heat and warmth, and then he felt like a dickhead for even a little enjoying her misery.

"I'm a whore, Erik. I'm so ashamed, I don't know how I became this girl," she sobbed against his chest, and Erik just held her, resting his masked cheek on her hair, because he couldn't contradict her without lying.

Meg Giry's promiscuity was a running joke at school, and scarcely a day would go by without someone cracking a joke about this shop or that store being "like Giry's legs; open 24/7." He had heard it, over and over again, watched her crack up laughing with the rest of the jocks and cheerleaders and the 'in' crowd. She had never outwardly shown it might bother her. She had never outwardly shown any weakness.

Like him.

Meg Giry wore a mask too, but hers never came off. She hid behind her body and her biting sense of humour and this grief eating at her stayed quiet and inside until it just burst out of her.

He had often considered that he would do anything to be someone else, to escape the crushing ugliness that was the reason he had never, would never, live a normal life. But he had never thought that maybe beauty was a curse too, that Meg let herself be labelled a slut because she didn't think she deserved any better, could achieve any better. That beautiful people suffered the same crises of confidence and moments of agony and fear that he did.

Maybe everybody had a facade. His was only more obvious than most people's. And Meg kept hers of a careless, free-spirited... _whore_ to everyone because it protected her best, even if it tore her up inside. Except now, in the arms of someone so far out of her social sphere he posed no threat to her. she could let herself go. She could show that beneath her beauty there was a flawed, vulnerable person.

And so, because she wasn't a slut and he wasn't a freak but that was the labels the world affixed to them, he let her sob herself into silence as the party raged on inside.

"Meg," he finally said when she had quieted, her arms still a vice grip around his ribs.

"Yeah?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but strong. He sensed her mask coming back up.

"Would you... I mean... if you wanted, I could drive you to the doctor's. To get you tested. For..." He waved in the general direction of her abdomen.

"Why?" she asked, sounding genuinely shocked. Erik was confused. Hadn't she said she was...?

"In case you're pregnant," he said tentatively.

"No, why would you do that? I've always been such a bitch to you."

Erik shook his head. "It doesn't matter." And weirdly enough, it didn't. Not anymore. Meg needed someone, and even if that was only the school's resident freak, well, he would be here for her. Nadir had his back, but who had Meg's? Christine? Somehow he doubted they had the kind of friendship he and Nadir had, and felt an inexplicable stab of anger in him towards Chris. Surely she could have been a bit more supportive to her friend so she didn't feel the only person she could confide to was the school freak. It also occurred to him that Meg Giry hadn't had a man want something other than sex from her for a long time. From the expression on Meg's face, he could tell it had occurred to her too.

"Thanks, Erik," said Meg sincerely, pulling out a tube of crimson lipstick. He recognised it, it was now all over his shirt. She held it out and he realised she wanted him to write his number on her arm. Gently he scrawled the digits down her slim, pale arm. "I'll call you," she said, standing. Even upright she was still short; it was the force of her personality that made her seem larger than other people. "You know, you're pretty awesome. I get why Chris talks about you so much."

"Chris talks about me?" he asked, fighting to quench the spark of hope that briefly flared in him. Meg's lips twitched in a proper smile for the first time that night.

"All the time," she replied. "She tries to pretend she doesn't like you, but I know her. She thinks you're cool. So..." She hesitated. "So do I."

She gave him a blinding grin before she walked away, her hips twitching, to fix her makeup. He only stared after, dazzled by that smile, by the gratitude in her beautiful glittering green eyes.

_Oh, fuck._


	6. The Thing About Curve Balls

Hello, gorgeous people. For the record, I am so not happy with this chapter but I figured it's time to stop procrastinating and post the damn thing. Plus, its 3am so that's kind of this story's good luck charm by now. So! Getting back to our E/C roots.

Disclaimer: If I owned Phantom, there would be a whole lot more orgies.

* * *

_I'm thinking maybe I can't have relationships_

_'Cause lately they're not making any sense_

_And baby, you're the one thing on my mind but that could change any time_

_Cause there's so many fine women that my head is spinning_

_And I've lost all feeling_

_Double Vision, 3OH!3_

_**The Thing About Curve Balls**_

Erik was entirely sure high school wasn't supposed to be this difficult. Sure, it was probably in the description that it had to be boring and dull except for when he had an assignment due and then he wanted to tear out his hair - but this was a different level of difficulty. This was like _war_.

His unholy trinity of complex relationships were doing his head in. Raoul occasionally shot him meaningful glances and Erik had even caught him staring wistfully in his direction once or twice. He thought it was a bit stupid of Raoul to be so obvious about his feelings if he was trying to hide his sexuality but hey, it wasn't his place to say what the other guy should or shouldn't do. Meg, meanwhile, had not even looked his way for weeks after the incident and Erik had his doubts as to whether it had ever occurred. He had been drunk, after all, and the whole encounter had left him off-centre and bemused. If it wasn't for the lipstick stains that stubbornly refused to wash out of his favourite shirt, he would have thought the whole thing a dream.

The problem was, even with all these new and conflicting relationships in his life, he was still utterly hung up on Chris. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her in the corridors and he found his eyes drifting to her in the cafeteria. he didn't even know what it was about her - she was pretty, yeah, but so were lots of other girls at school and some of them wouldn't object to their boyfriend wearing a mask. Knowing that she was Raoul's beard didn't make it any easier. He didn't even know if she knew her boyfriend was in the closet. Judging from the loving glances she gave him at every opportunity, he would guess not.

Which was how he found himself sitting at the table behind them in the library later that week. OK, yes, he was following her. Just this once, just one more time. And then he'd give up on her for good.

"So you times both sides by three, and that gives you...?" Raoul trailed off, looking down at his girlfriend expectantly.

"I don't know, Raoul, four?" she asked, eyelids drooping, one cheek crimson from where she'd been leaning on it. The boy scowled.

"Really, Christine, I expected better of you," he said in a clipped tone that had Erik stiffening in shock. That wasn't the way to talk to a girl, not even one as clearly blonde as Chris when it came to maths. "You clearly haven't been studying and you not getting decent marks shows me up."

Hmm. Maybe Raoul's desire for a perfect life to convince his father wasn't just limited to him, Erik thought, reading over his essay on the Russian revolution of 1917 with half an eye as he eavesdropped on Christine.

"I hate maths," she said tiredly. Erik took a closer look at her over his essay. She was beautiful, yes, but when had those black shadows bloomed under her eyes, like poisoned roses? And her voice - silvery, chiming, as usual, but slow, like even speaking was a massive effort she lacked the energy for.

"Not my problem," snapped her boyfriend, standing. "You know what, I can't deal with this right now. Call me when you're ready to do the right thing."

He strode off in a huff. Erik's warmer feelings for him had mostly evaporated. She was exhausted, for crying out loud, and she looked ready to drop her head down onto her algebra textbook and cry.

"You OK, Chris?" he asked. The girl's head flew up and she turned to look at him.

"Erik, hey. Yeah, I'm fine. Just worn out," she said, and Erik's heart ached for her. She looked like death warmed over - kind of like a hot zombie.

"Want some help?" he asked gently, sliding into the seat Raoul had recently vacated. He slid her workbook towards him, and together they worked through a handful of the problems. But the period was almost over and she still had so much to go. Erik decided to ask her. It wouldn't do any harm, only a little heartbreak if she knocked him back. And he could deal with heartbreak.

"Chris, you know my friend Nadir?" She nodded. "Well, me and him are having an emergency study session this Saturday because he hasn't studied for maths all year and I am seriously lost on the last term's worth of chemistry..."

"Really? What part?" she asked. Erik smiled weakly.

"Uh, all of it."

"I can help you with it," she said. "I got a 93 on the last quiz."

Erik's mouth hung open for a second before he remembered it wasn't polite. "You're serious? Cause Nadir gets it but he's shit at explaining it and I'm seriously freaking out."

Christine grinned, and his chest went tight like his heart was trying to escape his ribcage. "Sure," she said breezily, still tired but smiling and it made a world of difference. "Do you a trade, I'll help you with chemistry, and you can explain this equation stuff." She held out her hand.

He shook it, feeling both exhilarated and confused, startled a little at her strong grip. "Done. Uh, about eleven on Saturday?" He scrawled down his address on a scrap of paper.

"Eleven," she confirmed, readjusting her bag on one hip.

And apparently that was that.

"_Who_ is doing _what_?" Nadir shouted gleefully half an hour later as Erik explained the afternoon's occurrences to him in Biology. Their teacher threw them an irate glance as he marked their workbooks at his desk. "Sorry, Mr Heysen," said the completely unapologetic Nadir as he turned back to his friend, conversing at a slightly lower decibel. "Chris Daae is coming to our study sesh? Legend!"

"You're not allowed to hit on her," Erik replied, not even looking up from the microscope. "Here, take a look at this."

Nadir obligingly looked into the microscope. "Looks like a shitload of cells to me, mate," he said. Erik rolled his eyes, shoving his friend out of the way.

"You suck."

"According to the wall in the downstairs guys toilets, so does Chris." Erik smacked him upside the head lightly, squinting into the microscope and cursing as it jabbed him in the eye through the mask's eye hole. Nadir snickered. "Go on, laugh at my misfortune," Erik growled.

"Will do," said Nadir cheerfully, checking his mobile under the desk as Erik sketched the cells into his notebook. "You do the calculus homework?"

"Yeah, it was pretty easy."

"Sweet. I'll copy that later."

"So nothing new then."

The rest of the week flew past. There was something about the period of time just before exams that always seemed to go quicker, as though time itself was having a laugh at their expense. Nadir, although as cavalier as ever, was visibly freaking out beneath the surface and Erik was even a little tense. Especially when he started thinking about the periodic table. So come Saturday, 11am, the two were already holed up in Erik's room, the masked boy bent over his desk and Nadir settled on his bed, with books and papers spread around him like he was conducting a weird maths-based ritual.

"What time did you tell Chris?" Nadir asked, eyes on his equations.

"Uh, eleven," Erik replied, casting a glance to the alarm clock. It ticked over to 11:04, and Nadir made a face at him.

"Maybe she's not - "

"Erik! There's a girl here to see you!" called his mother, and Nadir winked at him, having clearly forgotten about his doubts of a moment before.

"Coming, Mum!" he shouted, walking downstairs (he managed to refrain from running.) His mother pulled him aside in the hall, her naturally happy face nearly overwhelmed with joy. "Erik, a girl," she hissed. "Why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?"

"She's not a girlfriend, Mum," he hissed back. "Just a girl... who's a friend."

His mother nodded knowingly. "Whatever you say, sweetheart," she said, returning to the kitchen, a wide grin on her face.

"Hey, Chris," he said, walking into the living room. She turned to face him, her eyes widening.

"Wow," she said. "You, uh... you wear it at home too."

"Yeah," he replied, unruffled, leading her through his house. "Saves my folks and my sisters having to look at my ugly mug." He grinned as he heard her quiet snicker.

"Not like we care, E," said a deep voice, as Nadir leaned over the stair railings to smirk down at them. "Daae, hey. Good to see you again."

"Hey," she replied, off balance. "Uh, good to see you again too Nadir." Erik was reasonably confident they'd never exchanged more than ten words before so this was looking up.

And surprisingly they stayed on task. Christine turned out to be freakishly smart when it came to be chemistry, applying the very skills she struggled with in maths. He learned more in half an hour with her than he had all term, even with the manifold distractions of her reasonably low neckline and soft, feminine hands touching his as they passed a pencil back and forth. Nadir was so absorbed in his maths he forgot to shoot Erik outrageously obvious winks and murmur innuendoes underneath his breath. And so the day passed, and only when Erik heard the front door slam did he realise his parents were leaving for the girls' singing lessons and they had been studying for over five hours.

"I saw we take a break," Nadir said, eyes straying to the X-box, long legs flexing as he stretched.

"Nadir," Erik whined. "No more video games. I'm a guy, but if you make me play X-box again, I swear I won't be held responsible for my actions."

"What are you playing?" Christine asked, a bit of a glint in her eye.

"You wouldn't be interested," said Nadir dismissively. In retaliation she snatched the box from his hand, reading the packaging with a smirk.

"Call of Duty?" she asked. "Oh, bring it."

So Erik found himself watching his best friend and the girl he liked go at it for two hours in an epic battle that left even him breathless. The sight of two people so important to him intensely absorbed in something he wasn't a part of didn't make him feel weird at all. It was kind of like they were just family. Extended family, and family he was allowed to have a crush on without it being incestuous and weird, but still family.

When Nadir finally conceded defeat to Christine, his dark cheeks crimson but a smile splitting his face, it was past six pm and Erik was famished. They made their way downstairs, Erik pleasantly surprised by the platter of sandwiches his mother had left behind for them in the refrigerator and Nadir even more so.

"Oi!" Erik complained as Nadir swooped down on the platter, appearing to inhale a third with disconcerting speed. "Dude, get off!"

Christine watched with what Erik was sure was amusement, a tiny smile lurking at the corner of her lips.

"How'd you get so good at video games, Chris?" Nadir asked, placing two sandwiches in his mouth and appearing to swallow them whole.

"Three older brothers," she replied, perching on the table.

"You're really good," Erik said honestly. She tilted her glass of lemonade at him in an informal salute. "I didn't know you even liked video games, Chris."

For a moment she looked sad, her lips turning down, brow crinkled. "When you're in my position," she began, "people expect you to be a certain way. I don't have to like it, but it's how things are."

Erik totally got that. People expected him to be the school freak just because of his mask, and he realised he had been happy to fill that slot because it was just expected. What happened to breaking down walls and forging new paths?

_"Bonzo goes to Bitberg then goes out for a cup of tea. As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me..."_

Erik's trousers were ringing. No, that was his phone. "Sorry, guys," he apologised. "It's probably Mum - hello?"

"Erik?" asked a hesitant voice, one he hadn't heard since that night in the rose garden.

"Meg?" he asked.

"Yeah. Hi."

"Hey, Meg, what's up?" he asked, feeling Nadir's curious eyes on him like a brand. He turned away to escape them.

"Nothing, I was just wondering... is that offer still on the table?"

"Yeah, sure," he replied, distracted, not noticing Christine whisper to Nadir and slip out of the room. "Uh, when and where?"

She gave him the name of a nearby doctor's clinic. "I'll text you the address," she said, her breathing unsteady down the line. "Just... thanks, Erik. Thanks so much."

"Sure, Meg," he replied. "Uh, take care of yourself, yeah?"

"Yeah," she replied with an half-hearted laugh, and hung up the phone. Erik turned around, noticing for the first time Christine's absence. "Where's Chris?" he asked Nadir, who had an odd look on his face.

"Said she had to go," he replied, leaning against the doorframe. "That Meg Giry?"

"Yeah," Erik replied. "She say why?"

"I could ask you the same thing, man," said Nadir. "How long you and Meg been an item, then?"

Erik focussed on his friend properly for the first time. Nadir's dark skin was flushed and he was breathing heavily, as though he'd run a marathon. "We're not," Erik denied, and Nadir laughed, an ugly barking noise.

"Sure, dude," he replied. "Just why didn't you tell me?"

"I... couldn't," Erik said, thinking of Meg's tears, her vulnerability, her shame. He couldn't out her like that.

"Man, we tell each other, like, everything," his friend replied, thumping himself gently on the chest, his eyes hard.

"Not this, dude," Erik said, feeling like the biggest bastard on the planet as hurt rolled across Nadir's face. "I mean - it's not my - "

"Whatever, dude," Nadir said, disappearing from sight as his boots thundered up the stairs, presumably to get his stuff. Erik sighed, waiting for him to come back so he could talk him down. But the words wouldn't come. What could he say without outing Meg's secret? So he waited in silence until his friend reappeared, his bag slung over his shoulder, his eyes steely. But Erik knew it was just hurt that filmed his friend's familiar eyes dark, and hated himself for it.

"'Dir, wait - "

"And by the way, Chris said have fun with Meg," Nadir threw over his shoulder, a cruel bite to his words. Erik slumped down into a chair as the front door slammed shut and buried his face in his hands.

This was not how it was supposed to go.


	7. Interlude: For Christ's Sake

This story will be the death of me, I swear. I haven't slept right in weeks 'cause I keep staying up late and writing it... Something a little different this time but be warned, Christine is even less PC than Erik, so the usual warnings. I've also changed this story to 'in progress' because although I've been delaying this moment as long as possible, I have to admit it that it doesn't look like this bad girl will be wrapping up any time soon. Sigh.

Also, as ever, thank you a million times to my gorgeous reviewers. Although there aren't many of you, each and every one rocks my world. (And isn't that a little creepy?)

Disclaimer: Christine Daae couldn't rock a miniskirt like Chris "Double D" Daae can, but even though I've reinvented this classic heroine as a skank, I still don't own her. Or anything else for that matter.

* * *

_Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my_

_Poker face_

_(She don't have to llove nobody)_

_I wanna roll with him, a heart pair we will be_

_A little gambling is fun with me_

_Poker Face, Lady Gaga_

_**Interlude: For Chris(t)'s Sake**_

Chris was really pissed at Meg.

Like, super pissed.

This was beyond any of their arguments; this was a fucking battle. She and Meg had been friends since primary school; they braided each other's hair, shared their fledgling crushes, and got drunk together for the first time - thirteen and shit-faced off of a bottle of cheap wine. They were like two halves of the same coin, light and dark, morning and evening and all that bullshit.

But for the record, Meg totally started it. Christine had put up with a lot from Meg before she snapped; had watched her best friend morph into a stranger before her eyes. It had taken only a few weeks of watching boys flock to her friend before Chris too had slashed her skirts to above the knee, applied her makeup with shaking hands before school, fucking up her eyeliner about six times before she got it right. She got better with practise.

But the thing was, Christine totally wasn't cool with it. She could tell herself as much as she wanted that it was just peer pressure, and it was all right 'cause she wasn't nearly as bad as Meg, but OK, that so didn't make it OK. She lost her virginity to Christopher Riley when she was fifteen, hammered off her skull and convinced that since they had the same name (sort of) it would only count as masturbation. Or something. Whatever the case, she woke up the next day naked and alone, in some dirty old house that belonged to one of the jocks' uncles, with Meg standing over her looking horrified. And incredibly jealous.

It was then Christine knew it was on. It was on like fucking Donkey Kong, because Meg might have started this shit but Christine had upped the ante by losing her V card first and Meg couldn't stand that. Christine couldn't remember exactly how soon her friend had sex after that - two weeks, maybe three, but then it was on to other things - pot, and blowjobs, and (mostly cruel) details of the boys they had been with. Tales recounted like ammunition, defended against with heels and miniskirts and lissom, golden-tanned limbs.

It was all a big sham, really. Sure, she'd had sex, but she'd never had an orgasm with a guy and most of the time to be honest it was boring and a bit painful and occasionally amusing. She had learned you totally shouldn't laugh while having sex, it sends off the wrong vibe. Whatever. Like with applying eyeliner, she'd gotten better at it with practise; mechanical sex, perfecting the fine art of the fake orgasm.

So it had gone on like this for a while until Raoul. Oh, Raoul. Until Raoul managed to subconsciously (or otherwise) pick up on her massive crush on him and ask her out. And then three dates later they were 'going steady' or whatever that ancient term for it was, and that was the end of it. Sure, they were a little shaky sometimes, when Raoul had one of his weird freak outs, but it was still awesome. Especially because Christine had a boyfriend and all Meg had were hook-ups. Also Christine had better boobs, a fact that gave her unending comfort. Meg's C cups might have been on display more often (or at least, mostly on display) but it was Christine's double Ds that the boys couldn't stop staring at.

But things with Raoul had changed.

She _knew_, for fuck's sake. She knew. He wasn't exactly subtle about it, and OK, she totally knew there was a reason he never called her by her full name when they were making out, or why he never tried to touch her boobs. She had been gutted, distraught, sobbing her heart out into her pillow for two hours, miserable enough to watch Chicago and belt the lyrics at the top of her lungs. Which had only earned her two weeks' worth of nagging from her dad, asking her to resume her lessons. Like, hell no.

Secretly, Chris loved singing. Like, adored it. But only when she was alone. Believe it or not, but the looks of adoration got tiring, the breathless sighs became predictable. When she sang people looked at her like she was a goddess, some otherworldly thing. Like a freaking angel or something. She hated that. It was hard enough being Christine Daae, ordinary high school student, without being Christine Daae, owner of the freakishly beautiful voice that resided in her throat.

Anyway, Raoul. Gay, gay, gay, and not in the derogatory sense. She was cool with gay people, her cousin was an air stewardess except for guys (what do they call them?) and he plucked his eyebrows. Like, hello! He was part of the reason she had recognised it in Raoul. She could spot a plucked eyebrow a mile away, because if there was one thing Chris Daae did know, it was beauty.

And fashion, of course.

The thing was, he totally couldn't come out any time soon. She was actually a little insulted he'd thought she was stupid enough not to notice. And after she'd stopped crying she had taken a step back and analysed the situation. Like she would a novel in English class. Christine liked English. Raoul couldn't come out soon because then Chris would totally be seen as the girl who turned him gay. And while she was reasonably sure it was that cute gay kid from Glee he was fantasising about when they were kissing, she couldn't have it be whispered and gossiped and laughed about around the school that her boyfriend was gay / had been gay their whole relationship / had been turned gay by her during their relationship. Delete as appropriate.

So she had abandoned her pretty loved-up fantasies of her and Raoul on their wedding day, having cute babies, etc. She had fallen to scheming instead about her high school future, and his, but mostly hers. If she was hurt that he'd lied to her, she never admitted it to herself. And she certainly never admitted it to anyone else. Meg would have had a field day with it and it would have been around the school in an impressively short span of half an hour.

It had all honestly been so tiring she had stopped sleeping. Well, she was still sleeping in Maths class, but everyone knew that didn't count. Maintaining this facade was tiring; pretending to be oblivious to Raoul checking out other's guys' asses was exhausting. At least he was discreet about it, she had _that_ to be thankful for. Although not so subtle sometimes, like when Mark Groves bent over to pick up his pencil the other day and Raoul's eyes had been fixed to the other boy for about an hour afterwards.

She had resigned herself to the fact that whoever the hell he was thinking about wasn't her concern; they were only together because they needed something from each other. He needed someone to cover him and she... well, she had no idea what she needed.

What she needed had looked out at her from a stranger's eyes, from Erik's eyes in the dark. She had touched him and for the first time throwing herself into sexual encounters hadn't felt like something dirty, something to be ashamed of. It hadn't felt like 'just something that everyone did'. Sure, she'd been drunk, but not that drunk. She remembered, his ugly face and his beautiful smile. For that moment, when she was drunk and staring into his eyes she was that girl again, that nice sweet girl who wanted to fall in love.

But she hadn't been that girl in years, so she had rejected Erik with her eyes dry and a steely hold on her heart, thanking God when he had asked her to kiss him so she would be able to know once, just once, what it was like.

And it had been awesome.

She had knocked him back but he still kept looking at her like _that_, like she was perfect, like she could do nothing wrong. She liked it. And he had been sweet and offered to help her with her maths, because God knows Raoul was too busy flicking his hair and probably painting his toenails to care about his fake girlfriend.

But now Meg had ruined it. She had thought Erik was different - no, she vehemently corrected herself, Erik was exactly the same as all those stupid jocks and band geeks and all the other boys at school. Guys who saw nothing but the double D breasts and not the heart beneath them. She shouldn't have been surprised.

But she had let herself feel something for Erik. And Meg had taken that too. And now, Chris thought, expertly finishing her eyeliner in the mirror and narrowing her eyes threateningly at her reflection, there was going to be a smackdown. Girl was gonna get it.


	8. It Ain't Over Til It's Over

Guys! Have I mentioned lately how awesome you all are? The reviews have been fantastic, but I have a teeny tiny favour to ask of you. So the chapters are pretty easy to write, but it's getting hard to think of new baseball metaphors that fit the chapters. So! If anyone has any suggestions, for baseball metaphors or any other sport, it'd be fantastic to get some suggestions because it helps me write faster... :)

Also, I probably won't be updating for a while. Its Australia Day tomorrow, the time of year we celebrate what it means to be Australia, usually with a lot of lamb and booze! Hurray! However, it does mean I'll probably have a nasty hangover for a while which will prevent me from writing anything other than pure rubbish. So this is it for a little while.

Disclaimer: ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY DISCLAIM THEMSELVERS INTO MORDOR!

... Oops, wrong fandom. I don't own Phantom.

* * *

_We are young, we are young_

_We drink and we fight and we love just because_

_We are numb, we're on the run_

_And you're never gonna chase us down_

_We are numb_

_We Are Young, 3OH!3_

_**It Ain't Over Til It's Over**_

The Daae-Giry catfight would go down in Heysen High history as one of the most violent (read: legendary) but also as one of the most simultaneously disturbing and hilarious. The later factor was mainly due to the fight being over the school freak, a fact that Erik still had difficulty coming to terms with even as he had watched Chris pull Meg's hair and scream his name among a string of incoherent words that sounded a lot like, "die" "bitch" "ho" and so on.

The awesomeness factor of having two extremely hot chicks fight over him was lessened by several factors, most of them his own fault.

The day after that disastrous study date, he had accompanied Meg to the doctor's to get her tested. And OK , the study session wasn't a total loss because he actually knew what was going on in chemistry now, but other than that it was pretty fucked up. He had sat next to Meg in the waiting room, flicking absent-mindedly through the usual shitty magazines and having a quiet chuckle at the articles, most of which were about clothes, jewellery, or how to give a good blowjob.

So yeah, he was totally bored. And more than a little curious.

_"Are you OK?" Erik asked tentatively. He knew from his mother's friends who had had kids that pregnant women were highly strung - well, more so than usual - and it was best to tread carefully. But Meg appeared little different to normal. Perhaps, he mused, she had gotten all of her emotions out when she had cried on his shoulder and her quota for the month was exhausted._

_He dreaded her quota for the next month, and hoped she might find someone other than him to dump it on. The father of her possible unborn child, for one._

_"I'm good," she replied, and then made a face. "Well, not... good," she amended. "But I'm coping." She turned back to her magazine, and Erik cast his mind around desperately for something else to say. He didn't want her to think he was boring, but neither did he want to bombard her with conversation; wasn't it obvious enough that he was nervous?_

_"Surprised you didn't do one of those home tests," he said, awkwardly chuckling a little. "Must be hard to get them or something."_

_She turned and looked at him through her bright, leaf green eyes. "I have one," she replied. "My mum bought it for me a while ago when I started being... well, you know. A pregnancy test and a jumbo pack of condoms." Erik choked._

_"Your... your mum...?"_

_"She said if I was going to act like a whore I might as well be prepared for it," Meg said matter-of-factly. _

_"Oh." And that was the end of that._

_"So why didn't you do the home test?" was his next question. "Surely that would have been easier." Meg shrugged._

_"I did do it," she said, much to his surprise._

_"And...?" Erik asked, trying not to get irritated. She was a pregnant girl, he reminded himself, and his mama had raised him to be a gentleman. Mostly._

_"It said no." Erik beamed at her, delighted._

_"So why are we here?" he asked, still grinning broadly. Meg sighed._

_"I think it was a false negative."_

_Erik groaned._

The results would be in at the doctor's in about a week so all he had to do until then was to try and mend fences with Nadir. His best friend was not talking to him, and while usually Erik would quip how ridiculously seventh grade it was of him, he knew it was serious. Nadir was doing his own calculus homework, for Christ's sake. He was also having to stay behind after class a lot to correct it. Erik would have smiled, but he was missing his friend too much to even crack a grin.

Missing his friend was one thing, but missing the sheltering blanket of protection being Nadir's best mate entitled him was another. The day the jocks finally worked out Nadir and his bulging muscles no longer had Erik's back, they celebrated by throwing him into the dumpster. The dumpster. At his age and height and _fuck_, he'd forgotten how much he hated it.

Meg had helped him out. Crimson under the mask, he had been unable to talk to her until he had finally washed the last of the spaghetti sauce out of his hair. Meg was no Nadir, but she was an OK friend. He found himself helping her with her homework a lot, since Meg didn't seem to have paid attention to any class work for the last two years, but it was nice. She was funny and friendly and sometimes when they were walking around the school on their lunch break, she would hold his hand.

Weird.

He found himself eerily protective of her, his hackles rising if someone called her a slut in passing or even made reference to her promiscuity. He had tried talking to her about it, but she only ever answered, "It's complicated," and left it at that. She never talked about Christine either, but other than that, she could talk his ear off if he gave her the chance. He now knew more about what it was like to be a girl than he ever wanted to know.

At lunch on Friday he waited for her in the cafeteria, but she didn't show. He waited until lunch was half over and then went in search of her, half convinced it would be the day she would go back to her jock and cheerleader friends and tell him to take a hike. He was already composing his pithy comeback speech when he saw a familiar dark head through the window, bent over in a chair, curled around itself.

Opening the door, he raised a half-hearted hand in a wave as her eyes flew open, back straightening as though to iron out her poise along with her posture. Seeing him, though, she crumpled back to her slouch.

Erik," she said dully. "Hey."

He sat down beside her. "What's up, Megs?" he asked. She shrugged.

"The doctor's office called," she replied in a monotone. "About the baby."

She fell silent. Erik, torn between asking her what they had said and respecting her space, waited a few moments. "And...?" he finally asked, burning with curiosity.

"I'm not pregnant," she said. "I never was. They said my period was probably going to arrive in a couple of weeks. My body skipped it or something. Apparently that happens."

"Meg!" Erik exclaimed, ecstatic. "That's amazing! That's..." He trailed off at the expression on her face. "Isn't it... isn't it amazing?" he asked, confused and a little worried.

Meg shrugged again, the motion sending the tears gathering in her eyes down her cheek. "I guess," she said, not looking at him. Erik slipped a finger under her chin, turning her face towards him. The moment their eyes met her face crumpled, shoulders shaking, and he pulled her into his arms as once more she cried into his shirt. "I... I know I should be happy," she said haltingly, her words muffled by his shoulder. "I'm not... I mean, how the hell was I supposed to raise a baby? I'm sixteen, for Christ's sake. I couldn't have done it. But..."

Erik understood. How many times had he dreamed of what it would be like to have a normal face, even knowing it wasn't possible? Meg having a baby was far more achievable, just not now, not at this point in her life. But she had fallen in love with the child she had thought she had, and finding out it wasn't - that it had never been - was a loss, of sorts, that required mourning. Yes, he understood. So once again he held her until she was all cried out, give her tissues and hold up her hand mirror so she could fix her eye makeup and lip gloss.

"We're still gonna hang out and all, right?" she asked once she was restored to her usual uber-babe appearance. "I mean...it's been fun, chilling like this the past week. I've liked it."

Erik smiled down at her, genuine behind the mask. "Of course, Megs," he said warmly, and she giggled, throwing herself back into his arms and pressing a kiss to his masked cheek. He wrapped his arms around her bird-thin shoulders and breathed in the gardenia-shampoos scent of her hair.

And of course, because nothing in his life was ever fair or easy, that was when Christine walked in.

She said nothing, her eyes dark blue and contemptuous, and then she turned and left the way she had came. Her appearance brought to the surface all of his angst and misery over the way things had gone down with her and with Nadir. He missed his best friend more than ever, and as for Christine, things with her seemed utterly hopeless.

So between that and Meg's emotional non-baby drama and double chemistry, Erik was more than ready for the weekend by Friday afternoon. He was grabbing his modern history textbook from his locker, watching Meg out the corner of his eye as she chatted to another cheerleader a few metres down the hallway, when a blonde, jeans-clad blur flew past him.

"BITCH!"

Suddenly the hallway seemed to be full of wrestling, writhing women attempting to beat the shit out of each other. Of course, there was only two of them, but it felt like more, their animosity spilling over and filling the hallway with an ugly, angry atmosphere. Erik found a jock on his left and a chess nerd on his right but neither seemed interested in him or each other, eyes glued to the fighting girls in the centre of the ring that had somehow formed around them. Above the usual catcalling, heckling, and shouts of "Fight, fight, fight!" he heard a familiar voice. Too familiar. Christine.

The blonde girl flipped her hair back, exposing her face. She - Chris - had started the fight, but the other girl appeared to be holding her own. Wait - was that Meg? - non-pregnant, tough as nails Meg, evidently giving Christine as good as she got.

"You bitch!" Christine screamed, throwing Meg into the lockers. The other girl surged up, shoving Christine back with both hands.

"Oh, I'm the bitch, because perfect boring little Christine _fucking_ Daae can't do anything wrong, can you?" Meg spat back.

"Don't put this back onto me," Chris snarled, winding a hand into Meg's thick black hair and tugging. "It's you. You knew I liked Erik!"

It felt as though a hundred eyes were trained on him all at once. In moments two of the teachers were in the midst, breaking up the catfight, but for those moments it seemed like the whole school was looking at him, wondering, why the hell did the two hottest girls in the school have a catfight over the school freak?

And the worst part was, he didn't know either.

Through the throng of dissipating students he saw tanned skin and familiar bulging muscles coming towards him. Nadir strode through the throng of students, arms crossed over his impressive pectorals. Erik sighed, unwilling to deal with yet another personal crisis in one day. "Dude, I know you're mad at me, but I really can't deal with this right now - "

Nadir held up his hand. It took Erik more than a few moments to work it out, but he then smacked Nadir's palm with his own in a half-hearted high five. "Man," Nadir enthused, "that was totally awesome." Erik smiled in spite of himself.

"Not exactly what I'd call it," Erik replied dryly, and Nadir snorted.

"Whatever, dude," Nadir replied, walking past Steve Jones and absent-mindedly punching him in the face. Steve staggered, falling to his knees and clutching his nose, which was now more than a little crooked and spurting blood. Erik could only watch in shock, mouth falling open in a no doubt stupid and vapid expression. At least he had the mask to protect him from people seeing his gobsmacked expression. "What?" Nadir asked, shaking out his fist. "Didn't he and Dave Hazel throw you into the dumpster yesterday?" Mute, Erik could only nod. "Dude, sucks," said Nadir sagely. "No one does that to my boy. Hazel will get what's coming to him too." And that was apparently that.

Nadir and Erik talked throughout their entire history class, throwing notes at one another's head while their teacher's back was turned, scratching out notes on the whiteboard about China's Cultural Revolution. By the time the class was over, they were back to the normal selves.

_sorry i got so pissed dude,_ Nadir had written.

_no worries man_, Erik had replied back. _but why did you get pissed in the first place?_

_kinda have a crush on Meg, u didn't notice?_

_no I mean I knew you thought she was hot but you actually like her?_

_heaps man, she's so pretty and yeah I know she's a bit of a bitch but I like girls who can stand up for themselves._

_wow well that's cool man, you should ask her out._

_you think?_

Erik considered it a moment. Nadir, strong, dependable Nadir, might have been the school stud but Erik knew his Muslim parents had drummed into their three sons respect for women from the cradle. Nadir would never force anything on Megs she didn't want. And he didn't think Meg really needed just another douchebag to treat her like shit and wear down her self-confidence again. She needed someone kind, someone solid, who would treat her like the princess she was under her eyeliner. Nadir was that kind of man.

_yeah totally, she's a babe. you should go for it._

So he had a mission. Hook up his best friend and his new friend. And maybe win Chris Daae back. And pass chemistry.

The first two should be easy. But the last one might require divine intervention.


	9. Say It Ain't So, Joe!

This story is a bitch, and it will probably eventually drive me mad.

Disclaimer: I don't own either Phantom or the massive volume of music by _3OH!3_ that I have abused in this fic.

* * *

_All they say is how you've changed_

_Every day I stay the same..._

_The house is burned to ashes_

_I'm no longer in between_

_RIP, RIP, you and me_

_RIP, 3OH!3_

_**Say It Ain't So, Joe!**_

So it got a whole lot easier when Christine dumped Raoul.

But then it got a whole lot worse.

Erik heard it fourth-hand from Amy Grey, who heard it from Sarah Marcus who heard it from Jake Lang who was actually there. By the time it got to Erik, the rumour went that Christine, who had somehow managed to grow to ten feet tall, punched Raoul through a set of lockers and into the classrooms behind them, bellowing that she refused to cover for him anymore and he should just admit that he was... a Twilight fan. The Twilight fan part may have been invented along the way, but the point of the fight was that both Chris Daae and Raoul de Chagny were now single. Erik had to endure the eighth grade girl's PE class dreamily recounting every perfect feature of Chagny's perfect fucking face, which was enough to send his mood from jubilant straight downstairs to homicidal, even privy to the knowledge as he was that Raoul was without doubt as flaming as they come.

Plus, he was reasonably sure Chagny was a Twilight fan. He was gay after all, and the amount of gay guys Erik had seen sporting the Edward Cullen hairstyle defied description.

Either way, he was decidedly not in a good mood when he left school the day of the break up, and in even less of a good mood when he rocked up to school the next morning. Head thumping, under-caffeinated, and _sans_ Nadir - gastro - he could think of a thousand places he'd prefer to be than sitting in Chemistry contemplating how much trouble he'd be in if he decked the teacher.

Crossing his fingers, he waited until his teacher was facing the whiteboard again and then slipped out of the room. None of his near-catatonic classmates noticed or if they did, they didn't care. Erik didn't much care either. If he didn't get some paracetamol in the next ten minutes, he would scream. Or punch something. Or maybe just pass out in the nurse's office.

Of course, because he totally didn't want to see Chagny, there he was, slumped over on a bench in the hall like some kind of homeless person. Raoul's gaze snapped to him and Erik inwardly groaned; he'd have to walk past him now, doubling back to avoid being near him would just seem rude. And God forbid he seem rude.

So he walked past Raoul as quickly as he could, but it didn't stop him from getting a look at the other boy's dejected face. All his anger drained away at the sight of the sunrise currently occupying the space where Raoul's left eye used to be. Erik recognised the way the boy sat, curled in on himself, arms protectively around his middle as a pose he himself had often adopted as a young child, and cringed inside. Raoul looked all of ten sitting there, a far cry from his seventeen years.

"Hey, Erik," Raoul said in the smallest voice imaginable. Erik's conversational niceties fled him, to be replaced by:

"Jesus Christ, Raoul! What the hell happened to you?"

Raoul's lip-glossed lips twitched into a grim half-smile. "The school called my dad yesterday to say there'd been an incident... and one of the teachers told him why it happened," Raoul replied, never taking his eyes off of the floor. "That Chris had said in front of half the school that I was gay. He... didn't like it so much."

"Fuck, Raoul!" Erik cursed, flinging his bag down and collapsing onto the bench. "That's fucking awful!" And it was.

Raoul shrugged. "Well, he's not going to kick me out," he replied in a dull voice, sitting beside Erik with an expression of pure misery. "Cares too much about what the neighbours think." The other boy laughed bitterly. "I think he thinks he can beat it out of me."

Erik winced in sympathy. His foster parents before his mum and dad now had been like that. They had wanted to beat the freak out of him, and their efforts only grew more violent as they failed. It was not something he'd wish on anyone, especially someone like Raoul - youthful, innocent, who didn't deserve to be mocked and abused for something so trivial as his sexuality.

Even if Erik did hate him a little for being a pretty bastard.

"Can't you tell anyone...?"

The bitter laugh made a reappearance again.

"Who'd care, man? I'm gay. Queer. A homo. A _fag_. I like boys and in the eyes of the rest of the world that makes me some kind of 'fucking _freak_.' Do you think that anyone would honestly care?"

Erik blinked, and thought about it. "Yeah."

Raoul looked at him with just a little hope. With more confidence, Erik asserted, "Totally, dude. You know, I bet there's a support group or a help line or something to help people cope with this kind of shit - stuff," he amended. "And you can, you know, always talk to me. Or something. If you wanted to. About stuff. Or whatever." This was an appalling time for his usual verbosity to have deserted him.

But Raoul was looking at him like he'd just rearranged the stars in the sky or some other awesome shit like that. "Thanks, Erik," was all the other boy said, his voice taut with emotion, and Erik picked up Raoul's hand in his own, rubbing his thumb over Raoul's knuckles tenderly. Poor guy.

"No problem, dude."

Fucking Christine had the worst timing on the planet. Poor Raoul turned white as a sheet and bolted to his feet as his ex-girlfriend strode around the corner, looking as if her eyes had frozen over and turned to freaky ice daggers.

"C-C-Chris," Raoul stammered. She barely nodded, but Erik saw her eyes dart to Raoul's bruises. A hint of emotion seemed to escape through that icy facade, but it was soon gone.

Erik raised a hand in half-hearted hello, aware of the tension and that he was smack bang in the middle of it. "Hi, Christine." He realised he was still holding Raoul's hand with his own, and dropped it like a hot brick.

"Erik. Raoul," she said, and returned to the ice queen expression.

Raoul nearly tripped over his own feet in his hurry to get away from her.

Erik had been thinking about Christine Daae for nearly his entire high school life, but for the first time he could remember, he was angry. Watching Raoul flee, his arms wrapped tight around his no doubt bruised ribs, Erik felt a swell of hot anger rise up from beneath his breastbone to claw at his throat.

And her! Standing there with that goddamn expression, like she was the wronged one. Like she hadn't outed Raoul in front of the whole school, and bollocks to the consequences.

She was such a... _bitch_.

"Why, Chris?" Erik snapped, his temper taking hold of his tongue as he rose to his feet. Christine didn't meet his eyes, the toe of one ballet flat scuffing at the ground. "Why'd you have to do it like that? You knew what might happen."

Her head jerked up, eyes aflame. He nearly jerked back from the tumultuous mix of emotions in her beautiful eyes. "Knew?" she asked. "What did I know? That he was gay and hiding it. Using me to hide it? Using me just like every other goddamn bastard guy I've ever known in my life. And yes," she snapped as he opened his mouth, "that includes you."

"Me? What have I ever done to you?"

Christine said nothing, but fumed silently at him instead. He decided that the silent stare of death was kinda worse than her verbal rages. He noticed instead her lack of makeup, her old jeans and ballet flats, her lank and unstyled hair. And for a moment had to pity her. She had lost her best friend and boyfriend within the space of a few short weeks. Raoul had used her and Meg had shamelessly competed with and belittled her. For a moment Erik almost forgave her, but the mental image of Raoul's bruised face and red eyes swam up to the surface of his mind again. Christine gave as good as she got. "It doesn't matter about what happened with you and me, Chris," he said, implacable. "This is about what you did to Raoul. It was wrong, and you shouldn't have done it." The words were on the tip of his tongue, fluttering. He could say it.

He couldn't say it.

But he couldn't live with himself for not saying it.

"I love you, Christine," he heard someone say as though from a long distance away, and then, comprehending the cliché he had just wandered into and not giving a damn, he realised it was him. "I love you but I don't like who you are very much."

Her eyes glittered with anger. "You liked who I was in that closet enough," she sneered, and Erik felt his body recoil in involuntary movement.

"That's exactly what I mean," he said, fighting to keep his voice level. "You're as sweet as anything half the fucking time, and then you freak out into this uber bitch and to be honest, Chris, it sucks. It totally fucking sucks."

He expected her to shout. He expected her to stare him down with her pretty, pretty death stare eyes. He expected her to scream.

But he didn't expect to feel his head snap back as her hand collided with his mask. Dimly through the ringing in his ears, he heard "Fuck," as she cursed, cradling her hand, and her hair fell across her face as she hunched her body around the injured limb. When she raised her head again, there were tears brimming in her eyes.

Erik felt sick. He'd wanted to hurt her, to make her understand the severity of what she'd done, but he hadn't wanted to make her _cry_.

And when she rushed away down the corridor like she couldn't get away fast enough, there were only two thoughts left in his head; that he felt further away from her than ever.

And that he would _never_ understand girls. Christ, her mood swings were going to give him whiplash or something.


	10. Hitting It Home Well, Maybe Someday

Well, it's done! The saga of Erik, Christine, Nadir, Meg, and Raoul is finally complete, although there's always next year...

**Disclaimer**: Not mine, for the last time. Literally.

* * *

_Where did you go when the sun rose?_

_Now I know how to get off these dirt roads_

_To find these streets of gold_

_Streets of Gold, 3OH!3_

_**Hitting It Home (Well, Maybe Someday)**_

Erik looked around his blissfully empty lunch table and wondered when it had all come to this, savouring a few moments of peace before the storm hit. He liked his friends, yeah, but to be honest, sometimes they tired the hell out of him. He was too young for all this drama, for God's sake. How was he supposed to focus on year 12 next year when he had to play matchmaker to a bunch of hormonal fucking teenagers?

(Okay, he sort of totally loved it. Not like he was telling anyone.)

Erik had gone from the most unpopular guy in school to stud in a matter of weeks and to be honest, it left him completely baffled. How did he go from having water bottles thrown at his head to fist bumps and high fives from the jocks and batted eyelashes and coy smiles from the cheerleaders?

Oh, yeah. He remembered. The catfight. The ramifications from Meg and Christine going at it in the hallway had been far-reaching. From what Erik could understand, the general consensus was that he'd been sleeping with both of them as well as half the cheerleaders and at least four of the girls from the calisthenics team. He wished - those girls were _flexible_. Apparently this (blatantly untrue, but still widely circulated) opinion elevated him from freak to veritable god, because no one cared about the mask when the gossip around the water fountain had the list of girls he'd nailed up in double digits. (Nadir thought it was all hilarious.) Anyway, it led to a whole lot more acceptance from most of the guys at the school and a whole lot more phone numbers slipped through the slots in his locker. And no more bottles thrown at his head. And a much bigger group of friends that had swelled to include Meg and Raoul, as well a number of charming hanger-ons that he now couldn't imagine his life without.

He'd had to let Raoul down gently, of course. But in all honestly Raoul had been so distracted by his twice weekly calls to the Trevor Project that he hadn't really been interested in Erik at all. And then, of course, there was Adam. Adam had walked over to their table one Wednesday lunch, leaned over Raoul, and said, "Dinner, Friday, Breadstix. You in?"

The following Monday, they had held hands and they walked into school. A couple of jocks had shouted something rude at them as they walked the halls, heads held high. Erik had looked up over the top of his morning mocha and screamed back a stream of vitriol regarding the jocks' mothers, hairlines, and penis size, and returned to his novel amidst scattered applause. Raoul's eyes had been so grateful, Erik had felt a thrill of heat crawl up his spine. It felt nice to be a good friend to someone other than Nadir. And Meg, of course. (He'd got detention for saying that many four letter words at school, of course, but it was totally worth it.)

Meg and Nadir were a slightly more thorny issue. But then again, knowing Nadir as long as he had, it hadn't expected it to be particularly easy. And Meg wasn't the easiest girl in the world to get along with, either. She was fragile and emotional from Babygate, and Nadir was, well... a guy. They clashed. But Erik saw the way they looked at each other and was not inclined to worry about them too much. He let them take their time in getting to know each other and was confident that his best friend would treat Meg right.

Which left him as the only singleton of their social group - an odd mish-mash of jocks / former jocks (Nadir and Raoul), former popular girls (Meg), drama geeks (Adam and his best friend Sarah - they were a package deal) and the former masked misfit, now guy with some serious respect given to him due to what was already being called the Catfight of '11. He copped teasing from his friends about his single status, of course, but it was not the cruel, mocking jokes of before but rather friendly banter. No one had thrown a bottle at his head or attempted to stuff him into a locker in months, and his little group of oddballs were all blissfully sweet to him. Even Adam, who he'd hardly known before the other boy started dating Raoul. Perhaps it helped that Adam wasn't perfect. His nose was crooked from an early break and his face still suffered from teenage acne. But he adored Raoul, joked with Nadir, discussed hair and beauty with Meg, and as for Erik - their shared love of waistcoats cemented their friendship quick enough.

And it wasn't like he tried, really. He went on a couple dates with Emily Thorne, a girl from drama club with Adam and Sarah, and she was sweet and charming. Didn't ask about the mask, went Dutch on the dinners, sat next to him in the movies and hid her eyes in his shoulder in the scary parts. She laughed at his lame jokes. She was nice. But compared to Christine's fire she was sweet and charming and... boring, and he let her down gently after the third date. The resignation in her sweet smile made his heart hurt. So for his next attempt to return to the dating world he chose Emily's antithesis, Stephanie Waters, captain of the cheerleading squad now Christine Daae had turned in her pompoms. Steph was a modern girl. She had offered to blow him in the Subway. The sandwich shop. Now, Erik liked to think of himself as a liberal minded bloke, but that was pushing even his limits. (Nadir was disappointed and said it was the most badass thing he'd ever heard. Even the gay boys concurred.)

And so Erik decided to pine after his lost love in silence and solitude. Christine was an unknown variable. She had pulled away from her old friends and taken up singing once more. Her dad was said to be devastated she refused to sing opera, but when Erik and his friends went to see the school production of Wicked, later they all agreed she was the best damn Elphaba any of them had ever seen.

(When she'd crooned out _As Long As You're Mine_, Adam had snarked he could have sung it better.

Erik had been spellbound. Even green, she had been perfect.)

He was broken from his reverie of thought (about Christine, of course) when two girls pulled up chairs at his table. One promptly stole his novel.

"OMG, E," Sarah said, flipping her black hair over her shoulder. The purple streaks she had been so fond of had to be dyed out a week earlier, but they couldn't keep the girl from her eyeliner or her girlfriend, Marie. "Erik, Erik. Are you listening to me? E, look at me. Focus."

Marie looked up from Erik's copy of Les Miserables and commented, "She'll just keep at it until you answer her, Erik."

Erik rolled his eyes and said, "What is it, Sarah?"

"Heysen was such a prick in class today." Erik perked up. Nothing like a round of bitching about the fascists that ran their school to cheer him up when he was deep in thought about his lost love.

"I know, what a dickhead."

"I know, right?" Erik had taken to Sarah like a duck to water. She and Adam had stuck together tight as two of the few out kids at their school, until Marie showed up in her combat boots and Sarah fell in love. And then Raoul was outed and the rest, as they say, is history. Erik liked them because they didn't give a shit about him being ugly - "I'm as bent as a two bob watch, Erik, what makes you think I'd care?" Adam had said flippantly, with Sarah adding: "We know what it's like to be hated," and Marie nodding wisely in the background.

"What up, ladies? And Erik," Nadir added, dropping into a chair with a massive thud and enough food to feed a small third world nation. Beside him, Raoul took the lid of his salad. Nadir had taken to escorting Raoul from class to class ever since someone had called him a fag in the corridor between History and woodshop.

"Hey, babe," Adam chirped, kissing his boyfriend's cheek as he slipped into the chair on Raoul's other side and Meg perched on the table beside it. She stole a chip from Nadir's paper plate.

"Oi!"

"Oh, shut it."

Erik smiled fondly at them both. Like an old married couple already.

Adam opened his maths homework with a grimace. "Times like this, I wanna go open up a restaurant in Santa Fe. Who knows shit about quadratic equations? Moreover, what kind of dick gives homework on a weekend?"

"Heysen," chorused five other voices and a mumble from Nadir's full mouth that sounded like "Guy's son." Erik glared at him in disgust.

"Thinks because his grandad founded the school he can be a bastard," Adam grumbled as he abandoned his maths, pulling out his monthly edition of _Vogue_.

"He's just sore because no one in their right mind would make him principal," Erik reminded him, manoeuvring a chip underneath his mask and into his mouth.

Yes. He was almost content.

"Hey," Marie said quietly, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. She was a quiet girl, reserved. She had only transferred to Heysen High in the last year. When asked, she had emotionlessly said a group of girls in her year had taken offense to her being a lesbian. From the darkness that sometimes entered her eyes, Erik could only guess it had been a lot worse than she ever said. However, those were the times where Sarah would leap into her lap and smother her in kisses. She knew her girlfriend so well. "You're being watched," Marie said in a deep voice, sounding like something out of X-Files. At Erik's snort of amusement she smiled and pointed over her shoulder.

Erik followed her finger and found a pair of blue eyes watching him. They were a lot closer than he expected. It wasn't the first time he had seen her since their last confrontation, of course, but it was the first time he noticed her looking directly at him.

Chris.

Time seemed to slow, the earth seemed to cease it's turning, and he was lost in her once more. Until she gracefully got to her feet and left.

Go fucking figure. Erik sighed and turned back to the conversation, acknowledging Marie's sympathetic glance with a tilt of his head as if to say, _women, huh?_

"All I'm saying is, Batman is way cooler than Spiderman," Nadir was saying loudly.

"Are you freaking kidding?" Raoul replied, Adam backing him up. "Batman? Please."

Erik grinned. Boys will still be boys, no matter their orientation.

_"Zydrate comes in a little glass vial. A little glass vial? A little glass vial! And the little glass vial goes into the gun like a battery - "_

"Oh, that's me," Erik said, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

"Wicked ringtone, man," Adam said appreciatively.

"Thanks, my little sister made it for me - hello?" Erik asked. If it was his mum _one_ _more time_ -

"Hi, Erik," said Chris Daae. "Could you meet me in the hall?" she asked and oh, her voice, after so long.

"O-Okay," he stammered out, and the click as the call ended felt like a gunshot.

"What's up, man?" Nadir asked, examining the remaining half of his hotdog as though questioning if he could fit all of it in his mouth in one go.

"Christine Daae wants to meet me outside," Erik replied, more than a little dazed.

Silence, and then -

"Go for it, man, she's banging," Sarah sang out. Marie folded her arms. "What? I have eyes, hon."

"Yeah, Erik," Raoul added.

"We're sick of you moping," Adam chimed in.

"And she's missed you." Meg ended. When six pairs of eyes turned to her, she shrugged. "What? Chris and I were frenemies for years, I can read her like a _Cosmopolitan_."

Erik swivelled until his eyes connected with Nadir, his first friend, his staunch companion. Nadir nodded, just once. It was enough.

Erik took off after Christine like a bat out of hell.

"About bloody time," said Adam in satisfaction. There were nods all round. "Now, who's got the answer to 24b..."

Erik nearly bowled two thirteen year olds over in his attempt to get into the hall. He half thought she might change her mind if he took too long and disappear into the ether like a ghost. But no, there she was, leaning against the far wall next to the fire hydrant and looking far too gorgeous for her own good.

"Hey," she said quietly. Now he was up close, he hardly recognised her. All of the accessories and makeup she had once worn were gone. It seemed to him like a weird kind of penance, or maybe she just didn't care anymore.

If she didn't care about that, what else might she not give a damn about?

"I'm a bitch," she said abruptly. Erik blinked.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I. Am. A. Bitch," she enunciated clearly. Erik couldn't disagree. "I'm awful, really. I use people to get what I want and then I throw them away. I don't think about the consequences of my actions at all and I hurt people just because I can. And the thing is, I didn't care about any of that. Or if I did, I buried it. I didn't let myself think about it. Until I met you."

Erik's head was spinning. This was all far too much at once. "Christine - "

"Please, she interrupted. "Let me finish." In that moment Erik worked out that when a woman wants something, it's probably best to just stand back and let her go for it. So he nodded.

"But I really like you, Erik. And I want to be with you," she finished a little anticlimactically, and his brain took an immediate derailment. "So, what do you think?" What did he think? Was he in heaven? Was this a dream? Was Christine Daae really admitting she wanted to be with him? The little voice in his head that was ever overanalysing things went into overdrive, but in a sudden flash of understanding Erik silenced it. He didn't need it anymore.

"I think..." he said, trying to find a way of expressing his thoughts that were at least moderately cool. He gave up. "I think that would be bloody fantastic."

Her smile was like the sun. "Could we start again?" she asked, and Erik found himself smiling back at her.

"I'd like that." He stuck out his hand. "Erik. Student, sinner, and bastard."

She grinned. "Christine - Chris. Singer, bitch, and handjob goddess."

He took her hand, shook it. It felt like a beginning. It felt like a promise. It felt like... love. Of course, he knew that was all bullshit. They were teenagers, for Christ's sake. They would probably break up in a month. They would drive each other mad, fight over the stupidest things, go on dates that would get epically cocked up and be taunted by their friends for sappy love notes. They would spend all summer together and then they would be forced back to complete their secondary education, and then all hell would break loose as they frantically tried to learn enough to get a decent TER.

But as he pulled off his mask and kissed Chris Daae in the middle of the hallway at 1.24 in the afternoon, Erik decided he really didn't give a damn.

* * *

Oh my God, it's done.

Thank you to everyone who stuck with me until I managed to finish this little slice of high school life. After much deliberating I chose to write about what I know and set it in Australia, because quite frankly all I know of American high school life comes from _Glee_. A very big, very special thank you goes to the one person who gave me con crit, told me to update when I was being lazy, and made me _my_ Zydrate Anatomy ringtone... B, you are amazing. :)

That's all, folks!


End file.
